President Jacob Zuma is up against it in his fight to deflect two corruption scandals.
The second-highest court in the country, the Supreme Court of Appeal, and the public protector indicated yesterday that Zuma would be held to account.
Signalling her intention not to back down in her quest to hold the president and other government officials accountable for the spending of public funds on Zuma’s private home, Public Protector Thuli Madonsela said: “Maladministration and corruption are the real enemies, not me.”
Madonsela has recommended that Zuma repay some of the R246-million spent and accused him of subverting the law after he appointed the police minister to probe whether he has any liability for the spending at Nkandla.
Following a barrage of attacks in the past week, Madonsela announced yesterday that she would seek a meeting with Zuma to “enable the way forward”.
Adding to Zuma’s woes, the Supreme Court of Appeal yesterday dismissed his application to stop the release of tapes – made by intelligence agencies of prosecution officials’ conversations – that informed the decision to drop a corruption case against him five years ago.
The National Prosecuting Authority now has a week to hand over the tapes and records relating to them.
In a judgment scathing of Zuma’s conduct and of the prosecuting authority’s “supine” behaviour, the court ordered that an electronic version of the “spy tapes” and their transcripts be given to the court registrar, where the DA will be able to access them. An independent adjudicator, retired judge Noel Hurt, must decide which documents can be released to the DA and what must remain classified to protect Zuma’s confidentiality.
The documents form the record of the decision by then NPA boss Mokotedi Mpshe to drop more than 700 corruption charges against Zuma in 2009. He became president just weeks after the charges, relating to the multibillion-rand arms deal, were dropped.
Yesterday’s appellate court ruling could pave the way for the DA to challenge the rationality of Mpshe’s judgment, which, if successful, might lead to the reinstitution of charges against the president.
While the noose appears to be tightening, Zuma is not even in the country. He left on an official visit to Russia shortly after the Economic Freedom Fighters heckled him in parliament with chants of “Pay back the money” a week ago.
“One is tempted to say that surely we must be reaching some kind of breaking point,” Nic Borain, a political analyst, said.
“Finally we get closer to the long-promised day in court for reviewing the decision not to charge Jacob Zuma for corruption,” he said.
Gary van Staden, a political analyst at NKC Independent Economists, said: “The ANC has lost direction and become a structure for protecting vested interests rather than democracy, and that’s the real concern that people are facing.
“Nkandla is the latest of a series of events and scandals where the president is accused of corruption and that is being pushed aside.”
Though Zuma’s failure to adequately address the Nkandla scandal has cast doubt on whether he will complete his second term, which ends in 2019, the president might choose to delay the investigation for as long as possible, Borain said.
“It might be that we are heading for some kind of final showdown, but it can take many, many more years,” he said. “There has been such an endless process of postponement of justice.” And Zuma still enjoys support within the ANC, with senior party officials having come to his defence and attacking the public protector.
But former deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe says the public protector should be respected at all times. Answering an SABC question about the war of words between the ANC and Madonsela, Motlanthe said the office of the public protector, as a chapter nine institution, supports democracy.
Presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj said last night if Madonsela “wrote to the president [about the proposed meeting] we would respond to her with the respect due to her office, but do not expect us to respond to a request made through the media”.
AfriForum has submitted criminal charges – in terms of the Public Protector Act – against ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe and his deputy, Jessie Duarte, for their alleged insulting of Madonsela.
If found guilty they can be punished with a fine of R40000 or a prison sentence of up to 12 months, or both.
– timeslive