Parliament - In its final report, Parliament's ad hoc committee on the Nkandla controversy on Tuesday absolved President Jacob Zuma of wrongdoing and asked him to act against officials who allowed the abuse of state funds to refurbish his homestead.
It also instructed Cabinet to determine which parts of the R246 million project that has haunted Zuma since he took office constituted genuine security upgrades.
This must be done within three months and with the help of the state security services.
As expected, the committee rejected Public Protector Thuli Madonsela's conclusion that the president was unduly enriched because some of the improvements - which included a swimming pool, cattle kraal and chicken run - did not pertain to security and should refund the state for these.
Instead it accepted a parliamentary legal adviser's view that this finding was “premature” as Madonsela was not a security expert.
The report faults her for arriving at it by checking what was constructed at Zuma's home in rural KwaZulu-Natal against a list of security requirements compiled by the police.
This was flawed as according to a Cabinet memorandum from 2003, the requirements should have been determined with input from the State Security Agency.
“The committee recommends that the matter of what constitutes security and non-security be referred back to Cabinet,” reads the report, which stresses that Zuma did not request the security upgrade.
It calls on the president to consider whether members of government ignored the Cabinet memorandum and “if necessary take the appropriate action” against them and as well as “members of the executive who did not act according to the prescripts of the Public Finance Management Act”.
The report, which was drafted by ANC MPs after the opposition withdrew in protest, also rejects Madonsela's findings that the president breached the Executive Ethics Code by failing to prevent the waste of state funds.
It cites the Western Cape High Court judgment last month in which Judge Ashton Schippers ruled that findings by the public protector are not binding on persons or organs of state, and committee chairman Cedric Frolick denied opposition charges that the ruling party was effectively reviewing Madonsela's report.
“We did not overturn anything, we arrived at our own conclusions,” he said.
“From the view of Parliament, we applied the relevant legislation and the laws... If there is anyone that does have information that the president has acted in a wrongful or corrupt way, then that information must be handed over to the relevant authorities.
“It cannot be expected of Parliament to go and manufacture things that is not in front of us.”
Frolick also rejected suggestions that Parliament was failing to hold the executive to account by leaving it up to Zuma to decide whether action should be taken against officials and ministers, saying it would be inappropriate for the legislature to do so itself.
“Parliament does not appoint the executive, the president does, and they serve at his pleasure.”
Sapa