Parliament’s Nkandla ad hoc committee late on Friday night moved to squarely blame senior government officials, a minister and deputy minister, for flouting laws and regulations, which led to gross overspending on the security upgrades at President Jacob Zuma’s rural Nkandla homestead.
During Friday’s deliberations, the committee of only ANC MPs, after an opposition party walk-out, repeatedly emphasised Zuma did not request the security upgrades, did not mislead Parliament when he told MPs his family was building the homestead, and did not contravene the executive members’ ethics code.
Other draft recommendations included making financial provisions for future security upgrades at presidential homes a regular item in the medium-term budget framework; reviewing the 2003 cabinet memo, setting out security at sitting and former presidents and their deputies; and, ensuring that a regulatory framework specifically sets out who was in charge of such future upgrades.
While Friday night’s draft recommendations still have to be formally adopted, it became clear that the blame would be directed at officials and gaps in the regulatory framework, which had led to – what ANC MPs called – widespread contraventions of procurement, National Treasury regulations and government prescripts…
South Africa Today – South Africa News
