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Those of us who had the privilege of attending Parliament’s Nkandla ad hoc committee meeting this week can report that we have seen an unprecedented wall of buttocks in defence of President Jacob Zuma.
Nomvula Mokonyane, the minister of water and sanitation, who once famously defended Zuma by referencing the Sesotho idiom “re tlo thiba ka dibono”, which means a person will defend someone at all costs, would have been proud of her ANC colleagues in the committee this week.
The committee’s decision not to afford Public Protector Thuli Madonsela an opportunity to appear before it was one of those moments in journalism in which you are afforded the rare chance of seeing the phrase “truth is stranger than fiction” in action.
In the Oscar Pistorius murder trial, for instance, such a moment happened when the hapless forensic expert Roger Dixon was telling the court that he had conducted an investigation on the light levels in Pistorius’ bedroom and that the “instrument I used there was my eyes”.
Funnily enough, this was the selfsame instrument used by the ANC this week.
“As the honourable chairperson said, seeing is believing and here we are equally dealing with what we saw and what the nation saw through the eyes of the media,” said ANC MP Thandi Mahambehlala, who has led the attack on Madonsela’s Nkandla report.
The purpose of this article is not to legitimise the legal status of the committee’s work, which others, like constitutional law expert Pierre de Vos, have already questioned. Instead, it will attempt (and that’s a big ask) to take you into the ANC’s reasoning on why Madonsela should not be allowed to appear at the committee.
The argument, as expressed by various members, goes like this:
. We cannot call Madonsela to appear before this committee as a witness (even though she has publicly said she wants to) because that would amount to a review of her report.
. We do not have the power to review the Public Protector’s report.
. We are, however, unapologetic about saying that the Public Protector’s report misled the nation. What we saw, with the instrument of our eyes, is not consistent with the Public Protector’s findings and we came to our own conclusion.
. But that is not us reviewing her report; we just have a different opinion.
Am I the only one who feels like this is nonsensical? And how did Madonsela mislead the nation? According to the ANC, the real eye-openers were the so-called amphitheatre and the fire pool.
ANC MP Mathole Motshekga said it took him less than “three minutes” in the amphitheatre to know that it wasn’t an amphitheatre.
As Madonsela explains on page 245 of the report, it was the landscape architects’ suggestion to “create the so-called amphitheatre, which was actually a series of retaining walls, to break up the level difference”.
The point is, as Madonsela found, retaining walls have about as much to do with security as swimming pools do.
“I noticed during my site visit that the swimming pool forms part of an area close to the visitors’ centre that also includes an amphitheatre, which can easily accommodate about 100 people, and a lawn area that was flattened during the landscaping process to accommodate a marquee tent. My general impression was one of an enormous entertainment area that has very little connection with issues of security,” said Madonsela.
It’s no longer even necessary to address whether the farcical fire pool is a security feature – most people having used their own eyes in this regard.
If anything was clear this week – and it really was just about the only thing that was clear – it was that the ANC will continue to defend President Zuma at all costs, irrespective of the bum deal ordinary South Africans may be getting at Nkandla.
