Thursday, 28 May 2015

The Nkandla Report


During the long wait for the final Nkandla Report, the long-suffering South African public hoped that the Minister of Police would ultimately present an unbiased report that would satisfy the public demand for justice in this apparently flagrant breach of the duties of his office by the South African President.  That hope should have been informed by the long history of dissimulation, of ducking and diving by the incumbent of that office.  The Tapes affair, in which the High Court issued a clear and unambiguous Order that the tapes recording discussions regarding the withdrawal of some 740 criminal charges against Mr Zuma, which Zuma and his stooges managed to avoid complying with by numerous examples of ducking and diving, spurious appeals and blatant disregard of the Order of Court, should have made the citizens aware that Zuma does not consider himself to be subject to the laws of the country.  His multiple attempts to escape liability for the more than R200 000 000 expended by the State on his private residence should have reaffirmed that understanding.  His fervent denials that he had entered into an agreement with the Russians regarding the building of several nuclear power stations at a cost of more than a hundred billion dollars, clearly contradicted by the publication on the Russian Government website of that contract, should have convinced even the most fervent Zuma fan that he is not a person to be trusted.  However, the gullible electorate, the sucker taxpayers, continued to hope that this President would show himself to be a man of honour.  His final sniggering comments in Parliament that the critics who have demanded an honest response from this man should have disabused any notion of intelligence, education or honour.  He made a point of the fact that some of the critics were unable to pronounce ‘Nkandla’.  This is remarkable, coming from a man who shows his lack of linguistic capability in his repeated abuses of the English language, his use of ‘commy-tea’ , ‘apar-thaid’, rather than Apart-heid’ ( a state of separation) to describe the policy that he claims to have spent most of his life fighting, his frequent ‘koting’ of authorities, rather than ‘qu-oting’ as any competent user of English would say, his comments about the ‘vow-lation’ of rights being only a few examples, now give his critics the freedom to use the same rules against him.

The Minister of Police went to great pains to explain that the cattle kraal is a cultural requirement of the Zulu people, and there, presumably, permissible as a security upgrade.  The swimming pool, at a cost of over R7 000 000 was necessary because the local fire service more than ninety minutes to respond, and is therefore a necessary element in the protection of this beloved President, ignoring the probability that the water pressure and unreliable supply of water could have been improved to the benefit of the entire community, at a lower cost.  The visitors’ Centre, it was argued, was essential to provide security to the visitors.  This, in a private home!  About the only thing that the Minister of Police said that might be considered to be true, accurate and meaningful to any of the many people who sat through this jumbled and meaningless piece of apology for the corruption of the President and the stooges who pander to him, related to the incompatibility of the Police and technology!  Virtually every citizen can relate to that!

It has been clear, since the day that the Public Protector issued her brave report, at the cost of a vicious and continuing attack on her personally and on her office by the ANC, that the President has never had any intention of complying with the law of the land or the finding of a constitutionally-established body for the protection of the public against people such as the President and the numerous corrupt people he and his stooges have placed in public office.  Even the Speaker of Parliament, a person who has the duty to ensure that the Executive accounts to Parliament for their actions, has stated clearly that the State President and the members of the tribal ‘royalty’ are not subject to the same rules as ordinary citizens.  That is a dangerous situation, a condition in which the Executive are elevated above the laws of the country, rather than being subject to a higher standard of conduct, by virtue of the level of trust implicit in the offices they hold.  It is a situation in which the newly-built private residence of a single man is given massive preference in the provision of Police services, firefighting capability and many other services above the entire community surrounding it.  It is a condition that places the comfort and personal enrichment of the servant of the people far above the essential needs of the tens of thousands of shack dwellers around the country, above the food needs of the eleven million citizens, including three million children, who have far less than an adequate supply of food on a daily basis.  It gives a man the belief that he has the right to spend two billion Rands on aircraft, when the economy of the country is going down the tubes, while the rest of the continent is growing.

Brief conversations with all levels of people, from CEOs of large corporations to men working in the gardens or sitting beside the streets in the hope of finding a day’s work to fend off starvation for themselves and their families, render a clear conclusion.  Jacob Zuma has lost whatever trust and confidence he may have commanded, before the People came to understand just what he is, and what his Party represents.

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