Quote of the week
Universal adult suffrage on a common voters roll is one of the foundational values of our entire constitutional order. The achievement of the franchise has historically been important both for the acquisition of the rights of full and effective citizenship by all South Africans regardless of race, and for the accomplishment of an all-embracing nationhood. The universality of the franchise is important not only for nationhood and democracy. The vote of each and every citizen is a badge of dignity and of personhood. Quite literally, it says that everybody counts. In a country of great disparities of wealth and power it declares that whoever we are, whether rich or poor, exalted or disgraced, we all belong to the same democratic South African nation; that our destinies are intertwined in a single interactive polity.
August and Another v Electoral Commission and Others (CCT8/99) [1999] ZACC 3
What President Zuma told Parliament about the Nkandla “enhancements”
Today the Mail & Guardian published details of what it claims is the provisional Report of the Public Protector on the spending of more than R200 million of public funds on President Jacob Zuma’s private home at Nkandla. One of the most shocking and scandalous aspects of this report is that the Public Protectors draft report allegedly found that President Zuma lied to Parliament (and hence to the nation) about the use of public funds for his personal enrichment.
The newspaper claims that the provisional report finds that President Jacob Zuma has derived “substantial” personal benefit from works that exceeded security needs at his Nkandla homestead and must repay the state, public protector Thuli Madonsela has provisionally found: a swimming pool, visitors’ centre, amphitheatre, cattle kraal, marquee area, extensive paving and new houses for relocated relatives were all improperly included in the security upgrade at “enormous cost” to the taxpayer, Madonsela is alleged to have found.
Here is the original speech made by President Zuma in the National Assembly in which he claimed the state only paid for security enhancements at Nkandla.
