South Africa: Nhleko - No Court in the Country Interrogated Nkandla Report

analysis

Police Minister Nkosinathi Nhleko has some wily skills to see him through verbal sparring, although instincts tell him when to stop feigning. This has stood him in good stead over the past 22 months as he faced the outcry over his Nkandla report, the controversy over the Hawks investigation of the South African Revenue Service (SARS) "rogue unit" and the continuing fallout of the August 2012 Marikana police killings of 34 miners. By MARIANNE MERTEN.

Nkosinathi Nhleko maintains his Nkandla report is "correct" as no court had ever interrogated it. Released amid rivulets of sweat and a video to the sounds of O Sole Mio at the end of May 2015, it exonerated President Jacob Zuma from any repayments because the non-security benefits identified over a year earlier by the public protector - the swimming pool, cattle kraal, chicken run, amphitheatre and visitors' centre - actually are strategic security measures. Last month the Constitutional Court ruled that the public protector's findings and remedial action are binding, unless taken to court, that the president had failed in his constitutional duties, and set a strict time frame for Zuma to "personally" repay costs of these features as determined by National Treasury, in...

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