At last ... Zuma gets his Nkandla bill

After one of the longest exercises in obfuscation imaginable – it is more than two years since Public Protector Thuli Madonsela delivered her report – the R7.8m the Treasury has decided is a ‘reasonable amount' President Jacob Zuma should repay for non-security upgrades to his Nkandla homestead has been slammed as far too little by several opposition parties, notes Legalbrief. The amount was determined on the instruction of the Constitutional Court. Should it give the figure – the total cost of the Nkandla upgrades was R246m – its stamp of approval, Zuma will have 45 days to pay up. And then he will face criminal charges. The DA, which joined the EFF in the Constitutional Court challenge, said yesterday it had laid eight charges of corruption against Zuma ‘for his complicity in the misappropriation of public funds at Nkandla’. EFF spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi agreed with other parties that R7.8m was not enough, but added: ‘... Zuma paying is an admission of guilt. The next step is criminal charges for benefiting, knowingly, from corruption.’ According to a News24 report, the UDM said the amount was an insult, while the COPE called it 'daylight robbery’. DA leader Mmusi Maimane said millions of rands of public money were wasted at Nkandla, and the R7.8m was just over 3% of the total spent. ‘Zuma and his cronies still owe the South African people hundreds of millions of rands.’

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