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 Post subject: Paying back the money
 Post Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2016 10:05 am 
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Over the past few years, one great embarrassment in South African policies has been Nkandla.

In summary, Nkandla is an estate owned by President Jacob Zuma. Certain upgrades were made to the place, for cited reasons of "security". Now, one can see how the fencing could be a matter of security; the swimming pool was harder to justify (apparently it's a "fire pool", in that it's a reservoir of water intended to be used in fighting fires should one crop up, and the fact that it can also be used for swimming is merely a happy coincidence). And let's not get into the private hospital or the cattle kraal...

Needless to say, all of this largesse came with a rather large bill (somewhere in the range of R246 million), substantially larger than is supposed to be spent on security improvements at the private residences of public officials (in the range of R100 000). (This bill may have been substantially inflated by certain contractors, smelling an unlimited expense account and... inflating their fees. One wonders how those contractors got selected.)

So. The ANC, being Zuma's party and holding the majority of the votes in parliament, insisted that there was absolutely nothing fishy about all this. (Zuma in particular has repeatedly stated that he had done nothing at all, in any way, wrong). While the DA (the second-largest party) and the EFF (a fairly new splitoff from the ANC with a strong support among the rural poor and no particular care for following the rules) came to the opposite conclusion. In fact, EFF MP's have, on several occasions, severely disrupted parliament by chanting "Pay Back The Money!" at the tops of their voices while Zuma was trying to give a speech (and, on at least one occasion, being thrown out by the police).

Grandstanding aside, both parties also followed the route of talking with lawyers and pursuing the matter through the courts.

After years of "I did nothing wrong" (the Public Protector's report of 2014 disagrees), though, Zuma has finally (and quite suddenly) agreed to pay back (at least a portion of) the money. Exactly how much, he is leaving to the Auditor-General and the Finance minister. The EFF is unimpressed, claiming that this is merely an attempt to avoid next week's hearing on this matter in the Constitutional Court - while others theorise that the upcoming local government election has something to do with it.

We shall see exactly how events turn out. However, it seems likely that, one way or another, Zuma will eventually be paying back at least some of the money.

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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2016 3:33 pm 
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Heh. Sounds a bit like the Senate scandal here in canada, although that has, for the most part, been settled.

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 Post Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2016 1:03 pm 
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It's just sad how corrupt South Africa has become. Zuma is obviously a piece of work - didn't he weasel out of rape charges a few years ago? Does the ANC even have a viable political opponent (that isn't crazy)? Continually re-electing the same party for decades (even if they scored a great moral victory) is not a reasonable democracy.

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 Post Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2016 1:37 pm 
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The Constitutional court gave the separate parties until 4 P.M.on Friday to come to agreement.

The EFF wanted Zuma to be found in breach of his consitutional duties and oath of office. The DA just basically said "no", pointing out that letting the finance minister and auditor-general decide the amount to be paid back leaves he decision with people Zuma has a massive amount of influence over. And the public prosecutor stands by the recommendations in her report two years ago (which calls for a different set of people to figure out how much Zuma should pay back) So, there was no agreement, the matter will be heard in the Constitutional Court next week Tuesday. (And Zuma's State of the Nation address is on Thursday).

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Heh. Sounds a bit like the Senate scandal here in canada, although that has, for the most part, been settled.


I'm not familiar with that situation.

Quote:
Zuma is obviously a piece of work - didn't he weasel out of rape charges a few years ago?


Yes, same guy. (That was back a bit though...2009, I think?) And this is a guy with something like a dozen legally married wives, as well.

A few years later, someone painted a picture called "The Spear" - basically depicting Zuma with his pants down - and there was a lot of controversy over that as well, because despite being a piece of work (as you put it) Zuma has a fair amount of incredibly staunch supporters who were rather angry at that depiction (I believe it got to the point of having paint thrown over the bit depicting Zuma's pantslessness).

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Does the ANC even have a viable political opponent (that isn't crazy)?


That would be the country's second-biggest party, the Democratic Alliance (also known as the DA). They're the provincial government of one of our nine provinces (the Western Cape) which means they're doing significantly better than anyone but the ANC.

Their biggest obstacle is that they are still seen, by some, as the "white man's party" - which, in a country about 80% black, is a bit of a handicap. (To their credit, they're working like anything on fixing this problem).

They're marketing themselves as being significantly saner than the ANC. And they have a good argument, it seems to be doing an excellent job of convincing the urban, employed, educated voter.

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Continually re-electing the same party for decades (even if they scored a great moral victory) is not a reasonable democracy.


You are perfectly correct. The ANC has a massive base of people who vote only for them, largely on the basis of Mandela and the general feeling that it's only thanks to the ANC that they have a vote at all. Zuma is also immensely popular among the Zulus in particular, largely because Zuma is, himself, a Zulu.

I believe some of these are beginning to become disillusioned; the ANC's massive majority shrinks a little bit more with every election.

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 Post Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2016 3:24 am 
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Well, Zuma has now been to the Constitutional Court. He started off by making several concessions:

- He conceded that the Public Protector's original report's recommendations (two years ago) should have been binding.
- He conceded that the alternative report by a different group that the ANC had managed to force through parliament, which said he had to pay nothing, was meaningless.
- He conceded that he did need to pay for certain improvements which had been made to his Nkandla estate, including the swimming pool and cattle kraal.

Apparently, at this point, the Chief Justice asked what part of the EFF and the DA's arguments the President did not agree with, given the magnitude of the concessions.

In short, the question is whether or not Zuma's actions in respect of the Nkandla incident were a deliberate violation of the Constitution or merely an error in understanding the law. (There's also the question of whether or not any items other than the five non-security items identified in the Public Protector's report need to be paid for). This is important, because if he is found to have deliberately violated the Constitution, then that opens him up to the possibility of impeachment proceedings...

The Constitutional Court has not yet delivered judgement. We shall see what happens, but it seems extremely likely that Zuma will finally be forced to pay back what he owes, and an attempt at impeachment is a very real possibility.

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Oh, and Zuma will be delivering the State of the Nation address tomorrow. That's likely to be a fairly lively event; the EFF has promised to be extremely disruptive until Zuma agrees to explain why he fired former Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene (the reasons why he then fired her replacement two days later are easier to see). It should also be noted that, last State of the Nation address, they shouted "Pay back the money!" until they were physically hauled out of Parliament by police, so they're more than capable of being disruptive and impolite.

At the same time, the ANC Youth League have promised to take some fairly extreme measures to prevent such disruption...

Quote:
“We have declared war on racists and those who are attacking the ANC and President Zuma. The message must be clear that Zuma will continue to lead the ANC until 2017, and the country until 2019,” Maine said, addressing ANCYL members during a rally at a packed Giant Stadium in Soshanguve, Pretoria, on Sunday.


Quote:
“Those who seek to disrupt the State of the Nation must prepare themselves for a civil war... The youth league will physically remove woodworkers from parliament. We cannot allow Julius Malema and his monkeys to run our country amok and turn this country into a banana republic,” said Maine.


So, basically, we have two groups of loud, shouty people who are probably going to run directly into each other. The parliament security people are going to have their hands full tomorrow evening...

There are also at least three protest marches planned during the speech. Those may well be less contentious than parliament at the time...

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 Post Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2016 3:20 am 
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...and now, after that spectacular turnaround, Zuma is now claiming that he never changed his mind on the matter, and that his former claims that he did not need to pay back the money are somehow not a different thing from his current concession that he does need to pay something back. Those who supported his former stance are perhaps feeling a little abandoned now, which might just translate into a certain lack of support should he be impeached... which is still by no means certain.

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 Post Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2016 7:08 am 
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Well, the Constitutional Court has finally delivered its verdict on the Nkandla matter. In a move that comes as absolutely no surprise, the unanimous opinion of the Court is that Zuma must pay. Treasury has sixty days, dating from yesterday, to figure out the amount to be paid; and, worse yet, that he has failed to uphold, defend and respect the constitution.

This last point is big, because that's pretty much what the President is supposed to do. It was his party, the ANC, which made (at least a significant part of) the Constitution, and which has been widely considered a pretty good constitution, all things considered; and on Constitutional matters, there is no higher court than the one that just handed down its verdict. This is going to lead directly to a number of challenges to Zuma's position. The Economic Freedom Fighters want Zuma to step down (along with every member of parliament who voted in support of him earlier in this saga - if they get their way, we're going to have a very sudden national election); the Democratic Alliance has already made it clear that they plan to put forward a motion to impeach him (though the ANC still controls enough seats in parliament that there's a good chance the motion will fail - the ANC is very big on party loyalty above all else, though of course some ANC ministers may still vote in favour of the impeachment). (Mind you, the ANC might still recall Zuma, quietly retire him, and put someone else in his place, but they really won't like the embarrassment of him being impeached).

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So now, let us briefly consider the Gupta family. What, one may ask, does the Gupta family have to do with Jacob Zuma?

...that is a very good question. Things that are known include:

- The Guptas are well acquainted with Zuma
- They are seriously wealhy
- On one occasion, they had a plane full of wedding guests land at a military airbase which is not supposed to be used for civilian planes, causing a fair amount of outcry
- The Guptas have been rumoured to be able to "give" ministerial positions in the South African government to people - something that should be entirely up to Zuma (by "rumoured", I mean that people have outright said the Guptas came to them and offered cabinet posts)
- and there have been enough other rumours of corrupt dealings between Zuma and the Gupta family that have been enough for a large auditing firm to decide to cut ties with Gupta-owned companies (apparently entirely to avoid negative publicity

Interestingly, it seems that there has been a fairly thorough effort to clean up their online image recently - including changes to their Wikipedia article that were described as "scrupulously annotated" and "at a stroke the entry went from distinctly hostile to just on the sympathetic side of neutral" - not actually removing controversial stuff, of course, which suggests that whoever did it knew exactly what they were doing.

(Though some articles suggest that they may be moving money out of the country, using the fact that Zuma, as a President, doesn't get searched by customs. Personally, I wouldn't be sorry to see them leave, but Dubai might not appreciate their arrival - except for those any politicians there who might suddenly find themselves an easy way to refill their bank accounts).

All of this, of course, will feed into the calls for Zuma's impeachment...

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 Post Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2016 6:00 am 
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Yesterday, the Democratic Alliance called for a vote on Zuma's impeachment. They needed a two-thirds majority - that is, 267 out of 400 seats needed to vote in favour of impeachment to oust Zuma. (I'm not quite sure what happens if there's a few people not there - I'm guessing you just need a two-thirds majority of the people who are there, assuming you have enough there to meet quorum).

The ANC, Zuma's party, which is seriously big on party loyalty, controls 249 seats. So a whole lot of ANC representatives would need to vote for impeachment for it to go through.

The final result: 143 votes for impeachment, 233 votes against, no abstentions.

Impeachment also means that Zuma would lose access to his retirement benefits (which, given his current situation of needing to pay back money for a good deal of the Nkandla upgrades, would put him in a really bad state) - so it is possible that some representatives, while agreeing that he shouldn't be President, felt that this censure was too severe (and might have voted in favour of a motion of no confidence, instead). Or the ANC representatives might be aware of some internal plan to have the party quietly recall and replace him. I don't know. (I do note that the number of votes against the impeachment was less than the number of ANC representatives. This seems promising, but I don't know how many of the 24 representatives who weren't there were ANC.)

What I do know is that the opposition parties would have expected this. Given the ANC's massive parliamentary majority, it was not an unexpected outcome.

The ANC's public line is that, while Zuma breached the constitution, it "wasn't serious". And it "wasn't deliberate". And that the President has apologised.

...and now we will see what happens next.

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 Post Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2016 3:41 pm 
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Wasn't serious. Uh-huh.

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 Post Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2016 4:24 am 
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Oh, well, <sarcasm voice> it was only fifteen million dollars, or two-hundred-and-something million rands, worth of state funds... and several years of lying to everyone in an attempt to cover it up... </sarcasm voice>

For a more specific quote, from here:

an ANC politician wrote:
Mr Mthembu stuck to the party line that the Constitution provided for the removal of a president only if there were a serious violation of the Constitution. He said the Constitutional Court had not used the word "serious".

"The distinction in terms of the degree of Constitutional violation is important. The Constitutional Court itself found that although the President acted inconsistently with the Constitution, such was not done deliberately or maliciously as he might have been following wrong legal advice and therefore acting in good faith.


an opposing (DA) politician wrote:
"During the course of the Nkandla debacle, we have witnessed a series of ANC Caucus members trying to bend themselves, parliamentary procedure, and even the law backwards to absolve President Zuma of accountability. As a result, the party and its scruples have become so contorted, it cannot be trusted to straighten itself and comply with the simplest letter of the law," Mr Steenhuisen said.


I understand Trevor Noah's been talking about this on the Daily Show as well. You can get to see the home that took fifteen million dollars to renovate if you like.

Quote:
You know what I love about this? People looking at that going ‘which one is his home?’ The answer is… all of it.


There's a lot of voices trying to push Zuma out - including some very senior ANC members (some of them being former ANC ministers). One gets the impression that just about everyone who doesn't support the ANC, and a lot of people who do support the ANC, all want him to stop being President.

However, if you go out and look into the rural areas, you'd find that Zuma retains quite substantial voter support among certain communities... though he's losing, and losing rapidly, in urban areas.

There are going to be local government elections soon; on the 3rd of August. The ANC is expected to lose control over a lot of municipalities at said elections as a result of this. However, since they are not national elections, Zuma cannot be unseated here.

With their impeachment vote having failed, the DA is sure to continue putting pressure on Zuma and his party through all possible legal means...

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 Post Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2016 10:08 am 
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Back to the matter of the Gupta family, who loudly insist that they are not guilty of bribery and corruption and did not offer to give people cabinet positions that only the President can give.

What with all the current media reports about them doing all those things, a number of financial institutions (banks, auditors, that sort of thing) have decided that they want nothing more to do with Oakbay Resources and Energy - one of the Gupta's companies (and one of their subsidiaries' non-executive directors is Zuma's son, as well, another link between them).

Well, that's what it was. In light of all the financial institutions basically deciding that they want nothing to do with the company, Duduzane Zuma and two of the Guptas have left their positions with the company. Whether Oakbay will be able to have a bank account after these resignations is still up in the air, but the company is nonetheless clearly in some trouble.

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As to Jacob Zuma himself, the ANC still seems to be taking a rather odd stance. Zuma, as far as I can see, is being strongly protected by the party - while those who speak against him less so:

Quote:
Ironically, while the ANC is trying to prevent any action against Zuma for breaching the Constitution, it is threatening action against ANC leaders and members who speak out against the president. Mantashe said those who insult Zuma would “pay the price”. Prominent ANC stalwarts such as Ahmed Kathrada, Dennis Goldberg, Mavuso Msimang, Cheryl Carolus and Trevor Manuel are part of a growing chorus of voices speaking out against the president.


There's a lot of voices, in and out of the ANC, calling for him to be recalled; at least one branch of the ANC has been calling for Zuma to be replaced by Cyril Ramaphosa (the current deputy president) until the next national elections.

Zuma himself has been making it quite clear that he does not like the legal system:

Jacob Zuma wrote:
“The law looks at one side only; they do not look at any other thing. They deal with cold facts and I was complaining about that (but) they are dealing with warm bodies, that is the contradiction. I must not talk too much because I might get blamed for something I do not know. I only speak the truth,”

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