EFF statement on Public Protector’s insistence that Zuma must Pay Back The Money
3 August 2015
The EFF welcomes the Public Protector’s statement on the illegitimate and time wasting Parliament’s Ad Hoc Committee on Nkandla. We welcome the Public Protector’s initiative to convene a press conference to defend her office and its work after the Parliamentary Ad hoc Committee took a decision not to invite her to defend her report. This is for the second time that parliament refuses to invite the Public Protector while it discusses reports that her office had published.
The Public Protector has also vindicated the EFF for not participating in the Ah Hoc Committee because it has no legal or even constitutional significance except to serve as decoy. The President asked the Minister of Police to determine whether he must pay back the money or not in the name of the Public Protector’s report. Yet no where in the Public Protector’s report is such a question asked and no where in her report is a recommendation that Police minister must get involved. The Public Protector asked the police, not the Ministry, to work with Treasury, not the Minister of Finance, to determine the cost that Zuma must pay.
The EFF did not participate in the Ad Hoc Committee because it refuses to legitimise Nhleko’s illegitimate and manipulative decoy. The EFF has always said it rejected the Nhleko report and will never dignify it by participating in processes set out in its name because we view it for what it truly is; a decoy from the main objective which is to have Zuma pay back the money.
If the ANC truly believes in their mediocre interpretations of the Public Protector’s report, we have a free advice for them: take the report for judicial review. This is the only legitimate step for anyone who cares about constitutional democracy. The Public Protector’s report, like the IEC or the Auditor General, must be respected and challenged through a court process and not an extra ANC parliamentary committee seeking to protect its thieving president.