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Tomorrow, Tuesday 28 June 2016, marks the 60-day deadline by which National Treasury must determine what percentage of the cost of the Nkandla upgrades President Jacob Zuma must pay back to the people of South Africa.

The DA believes that in the interest of justice, fairness and accountability, Jacob Zuma should repay 100% of the reasonable costs. President Zuma was fully aware of the Nkandla updates and the inflated costs related, yet he kept quiet as millions of rands of taxpayers money was spend on lavish upgrades the Zuma homestead, to the benefit of the Zuma family.

The South African people were defrauded by President Zuma and all those implicated in the Nkandla saga, and it is now time he pays back the money used to update his personal mansion.

In March this year, a full bench of the Constitutional Court upheld the remedial action taken by the Public Protector that President Zuma should personally pay a “reasonable percentage” of the “reasonable costs” of the upgrades to his Nkandla homestead, leaving the determination of a reasonable percentage to the National Treasury.

We maintain that a “reasonable percentage” of the reasonable costs can only be 100%. In determining the reasonable percentage thereof that he must pay, the National Treasury must send a clear message to all public representatives that corruption will not be tolerated.

The fact is, the Public Protector found that President Zuma and his family improperly benefited from the measures implemented in the name of security which included non-security comforts such as the Visitors’ Centre, swimming pool, amphitheatre, cattle kraal with culvert and chicken run.

Importantly, the Public Protector in her report Secure in Comfort stated that -

“A substantial amount of public money would have been saved, had the President raised his concerns in time. By failing to do so, the President allowed or caused extensive and excessive upgrades that go beyond necessary security measures to be made to his private residence, at state expense.”

President Zuma not only failed to take action to prevent the waste of public funds during the upgrades to his private residence, but in some instances encouraged it.

It is against this backdrop that the DA is confident that the National Treasury will find, on the facts, that the President ought to pay back 100% of the reasonable costs incurred at his Nkandla homestead.

In addition to this, Mr Minenhle Makhanya, the chief Nkandla architect, must also pay back the more than R155 million used to inflate the cost of the ‘security upgrades’ at Nkandla - which the Special Investigating Unit’s (SIU) 2014 report found him to be responsible for.

The DA maintains that all who were involved in the abuse of state resources at Nkandla be brought to book, and based on the evidence at hand, an investigation into Mr Makhanya and his involvement is essential.

We simply cannot accept that ordinary citizens have to carry the burden of the President’s self-serving conduct. The only reasonable thing for him to do is to personally pay back 100% of the reasonable costs of the upgrades.

Issued by DA