Tafelberg Short: Nkandla - The end of Zuma?. City Press

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СКАЧАТЬ was a R28.2 million upgrade to former president Nelson Mandela’s Qunu residence. During his time in office, no upgrades were done at his private houses, except for security. “But it was never close to R200 million. It was just the basics: electric fencing, automatic gates and a guard house,” said a source with knowledge of Mandela’s term in office. As president, Mandela mostly stayed at his Houghton home, his house in Qunu was built with his own money.

      Former president Thabo Mbeki lives with his wife, Zanele, in their house in Houghton, Joburg. Mbeki’s home has state-funded office space and a guard house for his security detail. Mbeki is also accompanied on the road by protectors from the police’s VIP protection unit. In September 2006, former public works minister Thoko Didiza confirmed that her department paid R3.5 million for security upgrades at Mbeki’s house.

      About Nkandla, a Public Works insider said it was common for projects in the department’s “prestige portfolio”, of which Nkandla is one, not to go out on tender. The department had a list of approved service providers from which it chose companies to do the work.

      At the time of the exposé, construction experts questioned the cost of the controversial upgrades, with some describing the costs as a “joke” and many saying they seem to have been grossly inflated. City Press spoke to experts in the construction industry who agreed to speak to City Press without access to detailed information about the extent of the renovations.

      Stuart Clark, a contracts manager at Reed Simpson Construction, said that after taking a look at published pictures of the residence, the expenditure seemed “grossly overestimated”.

      “The further away the construction site is, the higher the price of construction, with everything having to be hauled in from far away. But looking at the pictures (of the residence), everything seems overpriced,” said Clark.

      Hermanus van Niekerk, owner of Security Experts, said the price tag for security equipment and fencing at Zuma’s private residence was a “joke”, adding it was “impossible to think security installations can cost that much”.

      Van Niekerk, with more than 20 years of managerial and technical experience in the security industry, said “security for one residence should not cost that much money. It seems someone, somewhere is inflating the prices.” The money paid to Minenhle Makhanya Architects also seems inflated, said an industry architect.

      Most of the 15 contractors who worked on the project declined to comment, citing confidentiality clauses.

      When City Press put it to Thandeka Nene of Bonelena that her company in fact scored almost R100 million from the project, Nene, who has a penchant for German sedans and luxury holidays, said the figures were “not correct” and that she could not speak to us “because (she) signed confidentiality agreements”.

      The Mail & Guardian reported that Bonelena employed Zuma’s niece, Khulubuse Zuma’s sister, as a manager on the project. Nene said there was no Zuma in her company, but that she was “too far” from the work at Nkandla to know which people the company employed on-site. Asked if she investigated whether Zuma’s niece worked for Bonelena after the report was published, Nene said she “didn’t have time for that”.

      Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, at the end of 2012, an emotional Zuma told Parliament: “I took the decision to expand my home and I built my home with more rondavels, more than once. And I fenced my home. And I engaged the bank and I’m still paying a bond on my first phase of my home.”

      However, it became increasingly difficult to deny all the allegations and, after initially setting his aim on whistle-blowers, in December of 2012 Thulas Nxesi changed his tune. He told Kaya FM host John Perlman during an on-air interview: “It is clear in this case that people went over the budget.”

      Nxesi also announced that an internal Public Works investigation into Nkandlagate would be concluded in the following week and that its findings would be made public.

      Nxesi said the public had the right to be angry about the cost of the Nkandla upgrade but, added the minister, Zuma should be “appreciated” for choosing to live in a rural area “with the poor people”.

      This comment points to the fact that (over)spending at Zuma’s residence is part of a larger pattern of spending in the area.

      Not just a compound

      Rural development, which took centre stage in the ANC’s 2009 election campaign, would certainly play a pivotal role towards reducing urban migration, informal settlements, unemployment, crime and, most importantly, economic development which will alleviate income inequality and poverty.

      However, some would argue that during the course of his presidency Nkandla, Zuma’s village, has become the only village worthy of development.

      The number of projects “launched” in the village since the mid-1990s is impressive. They ­include tarred roads, water purification projects, electricity reticulation, bridges, houses, cattle ­dipping tanks, sports grounds, a condom factory, a tourism site at King Cetshwayo’s grave and irrigated community gardens. However, few have actually been carried through to completion, ­according to local people.

      Early in 2010, the bad gravel roads leading to President Jacob Zuma’s rural homestead and his dusty village were already undergoing reconstruction and no fewer than two other projects worth almost R40 million were on the cards there.

      For residents this was a boom that could only mean improvements to their lives. But some residents complained that development appeared to be concentrated in the area closest to the president’s home.

      Hard at work were the companies Namandla Roads and Civils and Zwelonke Construction, tarring the gravel roads from the KwaZulu-Natal ­midlands towns of Nkandla and Eshowe to Zuma’s village, KwaNxamalala, in projects worth R32 million and R4.9 million respectively. Another company, Phambili Contractors, was completing the road leading to Zuma’s compound. Other projects included the construction of a bridge across the Intsuze River which connects KwaNxamalala with another village, KwaMagwaza.

      All three projects were funded by the KwaZulu-Natal transport department.

      Locals said that the projects had been stop-start for a while, but Zuma’s rise to power appeared to have injected some urgency into the process.

      Other developments in KwaNxamalala since Zuma’s rise to power include National African Federated Chamber of Commerce (Nafcoc) president Lawrence Mavundla’s ambitious shopping mall, the Mamba One-Stop Development Centre which houses social development offices, and a Thusong centre offering services such as the Department of Home Affairs and a fully fledged post office, among other things.

      Also, in 2010 it was announced that Zuma’s hometown was to become the site of a massive new R7 million condom factory, also a Nafcoc project. Locals were promised about 500 jobs. Unemployed Enoch Mthiyane (27) said the KwaNxamalala Clinic sometimes ran out of condoms and hoped that the project would help ease this. “Jobs will keep us busy; all we do here is walk up and down aimlessly.”

      Alas, by the end of that year, party politics, a lack of communication and petty squabbles among government officials had derailed several development projects at Nkandla.

      The local municipality and ­provincial departments were at loggerheads over the R25-million Mamba One-Stop Development Centre.

      The IFP-run municipality argued that the centre duplicates the work done by the Thusong Multipurpose Centre, which was built by the municipality in 1997. The two centres are on opposite СКАЧАТЬ