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Reports today revealing that R583 million has already been spent by the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport on building a network of roads to service Nkandla is further evidence of an unprecedented and biased cash splurge on President Zuma’s hometown using public funds.

On the back of the R2 billion ‘Zumaville’ project, and the R238 million revamp of President Zuma’s private Nkandla homestead, the extent of this project needs to be urgently explained in the context of other pressing transport projects across KwaZulu-Natal.

KwaZulu-Natal certainly has enough road and transport infrastructure projects which could have been considered as alternatives to the Nkandla projects. These include the following:

• The road between Vryheid and Dundee, the Pongola to Louwsberg road, and the Ixopo to Bulwer road are amongst those considered to be in a poor or very poor condition by the department’s own assessments.
• Two bridges over the M13 are damaged and a danger to pedestrians using these bridges.
• A bridge in Willingdon Road in eThekweni was damaged twice in the last year and has still not been repaired.
• The deteriorating condition of the R74–Oliviershoek Pass road accessing the Drakensberg heritage site and alternate route from Harrismith to Bergville has affected the economy in the area and seen a number of businesses going under or cutting back, resulting in job losses.

I tried to pose questions on this matter in the Portfolio Committee on Transport today. However, committee chairperson Ruth Bhengu instructed the Transport officials present to ignore “politically motivated" questions from the opposition. The chairperson also noted that she would not allow the media to “dictate” discussion in Parliament.

If officials will not answer direct questions from the opposition on matters that are clearly in the public interest, they will have to answer to the Chapter 9 institutions mandated to protect public money from ANC kleptocracy.

DA Parliamentary Leader Lindiwe Mazibuko has asked the Public Protector, Adv. Thuli Madonsela, to investigate the spending on President Zuma’s homestead.

I will be writing to the Public Protector, requesting that she extends this investigation to include the building of the Nkandla roads networks.

I will be asking the Public Protector to investigate specifically:

• Whether it is justifiable to build  a network of roads to the tune of R583 million in President Zuma’s hometown while the rest of the province still has roads that are in a terrible condition;
• whether there are other projects the Department has undertaken, but has since neglected due to the allocation of R583 million to the Tale of Four Cities project which this network of roads forms part of; and
• whether there was any political directive to build roads in Nkandla, instead of in other rural areas in the province.

Public funds should not be spent to service the home and the hometown of the President to the detriment of other projects that are meant to improve the lives of ordinary South Africans.

If the President and his government will not acknowledge this, then the Public Protector needs to remind him.