Johannesburg - ‘If the need arises”, President Jacob Zuma will be called to testify in the disciplinary hearings of 12 senior Department of Public Works and Administration employees hauled over the coals for their role in the Nkandla debacle.
This was the assertion made by Claude Naiker, KZN manager of the Public Service Association (PSA), the union representing the public works officials who are being held accountable for the exorbitant costs associated with upgrades at Zuma’s Nkandla home.
“No matter who the persons may be, we will call them to verify our members’ cases. We will exhaust every avenue to defend our members and we’re not ruling out the possibility that President Jacob Zuma could be called to testify,” said Naiker.
The PSA, the second largest union in the public sector with a membership of about 300 000, will represent 10 of the accused in the department’s R246 million Nkandla spend.
Naiker said the charges the accused faced ranged between five and 18 counts, and were generally similar in nature.
They included:
- Failing to follow the proper tender procedures in respect of the Public Finance Management Act.
- Prejudicing the department.
- Maladministration.
- Not adhering to certain policies and procedures of the department.
He said the PSA were startled to learn that their members’ financial standing was also subjected to a Special Investigating Unit (SIU) probe.
This in spite of Public Protector Thuli Madonsela making no recommendations for disciplinary action against the accused in her report released on the Nkandla saga.
“We asked our members to co-operate with the SIU investigation. In the end it revealed that they had not derived any monetary gain from the Nkandla project,” said Naiker.
It is alleged that the state is going to great lengths to pin the exorbitant Nkandla bills on them.
But Public Works and Administration spokesman Brent Simon denied the action brought against the employees was a “witch-hunt”.
“There is no national agenda against the accused in terms of the charges and the disciplinary hearing they face,” said Simon.
The hearings were scheduled to start tomorrow but had to be postponed because PSA officials were not supplied with relevant supporting documents related to charges against their members.
A well-placed source in the department, who asked not be named, said documents were not made available due to the bungling of individuals tasked with putting them together.
“The charges did not correspond with the allegations. Therefore, the department was unable to furnish the relevant documents timeously,” the source said.
In light of not receiving all the relevant documentation, the PSA asked for an adjournment of the hearing, which is due to start later this month.
He said the hearing was expected to drain heavily from public funds because the department was using external legal practitioners to prosecute and chair the hearings. And it ultimately added to the cost of building the president’s home.
The accused will not be tried collectively but their respective matters will be handled individually by exclusive prosecuting teams and chairpersons.
“Such disciplinary hearings are supposed to be handled by people from within the department, not people from the legal fraternity. We raised our objection to this but we were overruled,” Naiker said.
Simon said his department had followed the appropriate procedures for disciplinary hearings.
“It is not abnormal for outside presiding officers and prosecutors to be appointed, it even happens in the private sector,” said Simon.
And they were within parameters relating to the costs for the hearings.
“The budget for the hearing will be in line with guidelines prescribed by the National Treasury. I’m certain we are acting within the permissible guidelines,” he said.
All the accused were expected to plead not guilty to the charges they faced, Naiker said.
He also expected some of the charges to fall away when the hearings commenced.
In saying that his members were being castigated for following the instructions of their superiors, he described the accused as merely being “robots” who responded each time their bosses pushed buttons.
“They (the accused) were part of committees handling various aspects of the Nkandla project, and followed proper procedures according to the financial management act and other prescribed policies.” - The Sunday Independent