Public Protector, Advocate Thuli Madonsela, has just wrapped up her reading of the controversial Nkandla Report at the Public Protector House conference room in Pretoria, which details her office’s conclusions on investigations into the saga.

Having read through a large section of the report now, the best summary is: it pulls no punches. There are few adjectives left unused in Madonsela’s criticism of the way Nkandla was handled, with the heaviest criticism reserved for the President’s personal architect who became the ‘de facto’ project manager for the site and introduced most of the ‘scope creep’ that led to a massive overspend some 10 times the original budget.

A number of interesting points came up during her reading; some of them are:

• Zuma violated the Executive Ethics Code in his failure to act in protection of state resources.
• The state violated the constitution by using funds allocated to Public Works service delivery.
• The ‘fire pool’, amphitheater, cattle kraal etc. went beyond what was reasonably required for Zuma’s security.
• Zuma must repay the state for what it spent on non-security measures.
• The helipad and clinic should have been built in a way to benefit the community.
• Zuma misled Parliament unintentionally when he claimed Govt. didn’t build any houses for him.
• Zuma’s private architect earned R16.5-million from the project.

These are just a few key points from the report, which contains over 400 pages. You can read the full report on the Public Protector’s Investigation Reports page.