‘Top Secret' Nkandlagate report: Minister of State Security says he didn't ‘classify' report

I have today received correspondence from the Minister of State Security, Dr Siyabonga Cwele which reveals that he has not classified the Public Works Task Team Report into the R206 million upgrade of President Zuma's private home in Nkandla. According to Minister Cwele the report is "owned" only by the Minister of Public Works, Thulas Nxesi.

If this is indeed the case, then Minister Nxesi must answer serious questions about the substance of his letter to the Speaker of the National Assembly, Max Sisulu, which was included in Parliament's Announcements, Tablings and Committees (ATC) paper on 19 June 2013. According to the ATC, the Nkandla report was submitted to Parliament on behalf of the Minister of State Security.

If the Minister of State Security was not involved in the alleged classification of this report, then why was his name used to justify its referral to the closed Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence?

This latest revelation follows a parliamentary reply from Minister Nxesi last week, which indicated that the report had been classified according to both the Minimum Information Security Standards (MISS) cabinet policy, and the Protection of Information Act of 1982; neither of which allow for classification of the report in law.

Furthermore, no reference was made to the apartheid-era Protection of Information Act in Minister Nxesi's referral letter to the Speaker. It remains unclear what provision of the Act this document could have been classified in terms of - specifically by a Minister of Public Works.

I will again write to Minister Nxesi and ask for urgent clarification on all of these glaring inconsistencies, as well as the omissions in his official correspondence with Parliament. Should he fail to provide satisfactory answers to these questions, I will table a motion in the National Assembly requesting that he be investigated for misleading the house.

The bottom line remains: the report is not legally classified and Minister Nxesi is clutching at straws to find excuses for why he has not made it public.

He must do the right thing, come clean and make the report public now.

Statement issued by Lindiwe Mazibuko MP, DA Parliamentary Leader, July 1 2013

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