Nkandla: Mbete wants to meet party leaders

Cape Town – National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete will ask the leaders of political parties in Parliament for a meeting to discuss the Constitutional Court judgment that found President Jacob Zuma and Parliament had breached the Constitution in the Nkandla matter.
“As stated before, the National Assembly and broadly Parliament respects the judgment,” Mbete said in a statement on Sunday.
“The judgment does provide guidance in terms of how the reports of the public protector and generally Chapter Nine Institutions should be dealt with. This guidance is appreciated.
“All parties need to collectively reflect on the judgment. In this regard I will be asking leaders of political parties in Parliament for a meeting to discuss the judgment. We need to see how the judgment could be used to improve our mechanisms,” she said.
There had already been a request for a debate on the implications of the judgment for the National Assembly. There was also a proposal from the Inkatha Freedom Party for a multi-party committee to look into the matter.
“As we know the National Assembly will on Tuesday, 5 April, consider a motion by the Democratic Alliance for the removal of the president in terms of section 89 of the Constitution,” Mbete said.
On Thursday, the Constitutional Court found against Zuma in the Nkandla matter, ruling that he breached the Constitution when he failed to heed Public Protector Thuli Madonsela’s report on non-security improvements to his private Nkandla residence, and should reimburse the state an amount to be determined by National Treasury.
In its damning ruling, the court gave Zuma 105 days to pay back a portion of the money spent on the non-security upgrades to his residence. The total amount spent at taxpayers’ expense on his private residence at Nkandla in rural KwaZulu-Natal came to more than R246 million.
In a unanimous judgment by a full bench of South Africa’s highest court, Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng said both Zuma and the National Assembly had failed in their duty to protect and uphold the country’s Constitution when they ignored Madonsela’s directives.