Parliamentary leader for the DA, Mmusi Maimane says his party will go to court if Zuma refuses to pay back Nkandla money.
Image: BDLive
The Democratic Alliance has threatened to take President Jacob Zuma to court over his non-payment of some of the money that was lavished on his home in Nkandla and which has the subject of many debates and violent altercations between the ruling party and the opposition. The DA’s Parliamentary leader, Mmusi Maimane said this when he was speaking to journalists in Johannesburg on Monday.
Maimane said if the President decided as he had indicated that he would not be paying back the money, his party would take him to court for this omission. “If the president goes on to not pay back the money, (we) would take him to court over the matter,” said the young charismatic leader of the opposition, adding that the lavish spending on the President’s home was a “a poster for corruption”.
Last week, the President, while speaking in parliament, struck a note of defiance where he indicated that he had no intention of paying a single cent of the money that is said to have been used in non-security items during the upgrading of the security of the President’s home. These non-security items include a swimming pool, a chicken run and a cattle kraal. After her investigations into the whole saga, the nation’s Public Protector, Thuli Madonsela found that the President and his family unfairly benefitted from these upgrades and recommended that the President pays part of the money back into the state coffers. Zuma then appointed the minister of police to make a determination of how much, if any, he needed to pay back. That determination is still pending.
In an attempt to put pressure on the President to pay back the money, the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters disrupted parliament proceedings last year when they chanted “pay back the money”. The result is that they have been thrown out of parliament on several occasions. The latest was during the State of the Nation Address, which also led them to be mishandled and manhandled. However, the money has still not been paid back since police minister has not come out into the open about what needs to paid back into state coffers.
