Cape Town - The quantity surveyors who helped the Treasury determine the R7.8 million to be paid by President Zuma for non-security upgrades at Nkandla were unable to make a precise cost analysis because there was no bill of quantities to work from.
And the drawings supplied were incomplete – and in some cases did not match what was actually built.
This emerged from the report of the Treasury to the Constitutional Court, in line with the order of March 31 that it should determine the reasonable costs of the non-security items listed in Public Protector Thuli Madonsela’s Nkandla report, and the reasonable percentage of this to be paid by Zuma.
The Treasury appointed two quantity surveyor firms to make a professional assessment of the market-related value of the visitors centre, swimming pool, amphitheatre, cattle kraal and chicken run, which Madonsela had singled out as being non-security features.
But the design, construction and engineering drawings supplied by the Department of Public Works “did not include the final ‘as built’ drawings, neither did any of the information received include structural drawings, wet surfaces, civil, electrical or mechanical information or any related specifications”, the Treasury said.
“In addition, no bill of quantities was provided to assist in the determination of the reasonable costs incurred in building the said facilities,” the report said.
Madonsela encountered similar difficulties in accessing Nkandla documents – in particular, a list of items for Zuma’s personal account that had been drawn up at the request of then-deputy minister for Public Works, Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu, which subsequently vanished.
The lack of complete drawings for the project appears to confirm the extent to which Zuma’s architect, Minenhle Makhanya, made up the scope of the work as he went along.
The quantity surveyors noted that the drawings supplied also did not match what was built.
The plan for the visitors centre, for example, showed only a single-storey building. But the finished article was a double-storey facility, the bottom floor of which is used by the SAPS as a control centre.
As a result of the incomplete documentation, the quantity surveyors could only do an “elemental cost analysis”, which the Treasury said would typically be within 10% of the actual costs, whereas “an estimate based on a bill of quantities immediately prior to construction, or on precise ‘as built’ information, will have an accuracy typically within 5% of the cost of the constructed works”.
However, the Treasury submitted the reports of the two firms – one of which put the costs in 2009 terms at R6.85m and the other which put it at R8.64m – to a moderating panel comprising experts from the SA Institute of Civil Engineering and the Association of SA Quantity Surveyors, which found the reasonable costs to be R8.88m.
However, taking into account the use of the bottom floor of the Visitors Centre by the SAPS, the Treasury determined that Zuma should pay 87.94% of the total, or R7.814m.
The presidency said it was studying the report and would comment later.
DA leader, Mmusi Maimane, said Zuma should pay this amount personally, and “without delay”.
He said his party would “not relent in ensuring that all of those who were complicit in the Nkandla corruption were brought to book so that we can retrieve every cent unduly spent”.
IFP MP Narend Singh said the Treasury should compile “a full breakdown and debatement of how this amount was arrived at, as it does seem somewhat trivial when compared with the overall expenditure incurred at Nkandla”.
The Constitutional Court still has to consider the Treasury report before confirming the sum Zuma must pay.