Paperwork related to Zuma's Nkandla upgrade shows how the costs ballooned from around R28m to almost R270m.
|||Cape Town - A vast array of documents on the construction at President Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla estate have been released and now offer new insight into how the state escalated a plan to spend R27.8-million into more than R270-million.
The M&G reported on Friday that amaBhungane, the paper’s Centre for Investigative Journalism, had received 12 000 pages of Public Works Department documents relating to Nkandla. These had been released to amaBhungane two weeks ago in response to an access to information request.
The request was launched a year ago under the Promotion of Access to Information Act, “apparently in a bid to head off a court hearing on the department's initial refusal of the request”.
“Documents obtained by amaBhungane lay bare how Jacob Zuma’s accession to the presidency set off an orgy of official grovelling that allowed the security upgrade at his private Nkandla homestead to balloon from a modest R27.8-million plan in 2009 to a projected total of about R270 million in October 2012.
“The official expenditure as of June 2013 is R210 505 255 - but this does not appear to include bills still to be paid, including maintenance,” the newspaper reported.
Included in the documents, which are now available on the M&G’s website, are correspondence which the paper says proves a number of key concerns - such as whether the wide array of tenders were all procedurally correct and whether sufficient controls were in place to prevent budgetary over-runs.
The documents also leave questions about how it was decided what the state should pay, and what Zuma should pay - formally termed “apportionment of costs”.
A document titled “Top Secret - do not copy or distribute”, it is indicated that the scope of the works is divided into the following:
* Public (State) portion: R203 079 677.18
* Private (Owner) portion: R10 651 580.64
Other documents made public gives insight into how certain expenditures, such as air-conditioning, were included in “security” budgets - as they were only needed because certain rooms or buildings could not have windows for security reasons.
Because such expenditure was security-related, it was included in the state’s bill, and not Zuma’s.
Crucially, the paper says the documents shed light into how much Zuma knew about the huge spending.
The March 2011 “apportionment” document, “Mr BK Khanyile”, the Regional Manager of the Department of Public Works in Durban, recommended that “the scope of the works apportioned to the Principal (Zuma) be discussed and guidance be given to the team pertaining to the implementation thereof before construction will continue.”
However, it remains unclear whether Khanyile was suggesting the matter be discussed with Zuma personally, or with others. Notwithstanding lack of clarity in correspondence such as this, the M&G said it was “inescapably clear” that Zuma knew a great deal, and had given it his tacit blessing.
The M&G claims this was in stark contrast to what Zuma protested in the National Assembly on November 15, specifically: “There are two different things: my homes that are built by me and my family, and the security features that the government wanted… to satisfy their own requirements… These are matters that the government… don’t ask me, don’t ask me.”
The release of the documents come amid the inter-ministerial wrangle around whether or not a government report into the scandal should be made available for public scrutiny, or whether the report should remain “top secret”, in line with Nkandla’s supposed status as a National Key Point.
Cape Argus