‘Zuma is behaving like a court jester’

If you ever dreamt of calling President Jacob Zuma on his personal cellphone, this could be your chance.

If you ever dreamt of calling President Jacob Zuma on his personal cellphone, this could be your chance.

Published May 29, 2015

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Cape Town - President Jacob Zuma’s response to his budget vote debate in Parliament this week was appalling, the South African Council of Churches (SACC) said on Friday.

“Jesting about the scandalous Nkandla issue and investigation during his response to Parliament was an undeniably low point in the Presidency, of which there are becoming too many,” the SACC said in a statement.

“Behaving and speaking like a court jester was disappointing, embarrassing and inappropriate for the head of state.”

The SACC was responding to Zuma’s conduct in the National Assembly on Wednesday where the President was seen making fun of opposition parties for taking him on over the use of taxpayers money to upgrade his Nkandla homestead in KwaZulu Natal.

The findings of a report by police minister Nathi Nhleko that President Jacob Zuma does not have to pay back a cent of public funds used on the Nkandla project, had also left the SACC disappointed, with SACC President and presiding bishop of the Methodist Church, Zipho Siwa, describing it as a “grave mockery of justice”.

“We are gravely concerned about the failure of the President and the relevant ministers to accept moral and political responsibility in relation to the unjustifiably high costs of the upgrades,” Siwa said in the statement.

“Having ministers defend the indefensible damages the moral integrity of the whole governing system.”

Siwa said the findings highlighted the lack of accountability by those in power.

“The review of the Public Protector’s report should have been conducted by a competent independent body or arm of government and not by a minister who serves the whim of the Office being investigated,” he said.

“It’s a sad day when the office of the Public Protector, one of the symbols of our very democracy, is reduced to an office of ‘public suggestions’.”

ANA

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