Malema wants Zuma to answer for Nkandla in court

Before Zuma could take to the podium for his fourth question-and-answer session for the year, several EFF MPs jumped up objecting to their question on Nkandla only being placed last on the question paper.

Mmusi Maimane, head of the opposition Democratic Alliance, called Bashir “a man wanted for genocide against Africans” and asked Zuma why he had not kept previous promises to enforce the warrant, an obligation which is binding for all ICC members.

Zuma had avoided answering the question, saying he would reply to all questions on Nkandla as soon as the parliamentary probe of the matter was finalised. You know, if I said anything before these processes are over I would be doing the wrong thing.

Zuma told lawmakers in Cape Town on Thursday it would be premature for him to say whether he was liable to pay anything before Parliament concludes its work. Members of the group, who dress in red berets and jackets, aggressively attack Zuma and the governing African National Congress in parliament.

She recommended that Zuma pay back some of the money spent on the renovations which included a swimming pool, an amphitheatre and a cattle enclosure.

A South African judge on Tuesday threw out a case in which Julius Malema, leader of the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party, had been charged with a broad array of offenses, including corruption.

On this occasion, it was expected that the EFF would keep hammering away at the matter until Speaker Baleka Mbete was driven to apply Parliament’s new rulesand have its MPs removed.

The ad hoc committee on Nkandla was meeting in Parliament on Thursday evening to finalise discussions before submitting its final report by Friday’s deadline.

Ndlozi said the question was placed last so that when the allocated time for Thursday’s sitting had ended, the House would be adjourned and the question would go unanswered. A lawyer who was part of a team that drafted the nation’s constitution two decades ago, she plans to return to the legal profession or become an academic when she leaves her position.

“It means the ANC majority has exonerated President Jacob Zuma and said he doesn’t have to pay back one cent. We could see he has benefited unduly”. Partly due to this permissiveness, and partly due to Malema calling an end to the Nkandla badgering, the National Assembly session concluded peacefully with Mbete adjourning matters, rather than parliamentary security officers entering the building.

Speaking to the media outside the court where a large crowd of his supporters danced and sang in celebration, Malema said he was ready to fight on through the courts.

After the president refused to answer the question, saying the matter was still before the committee, he retorted: “It is very clear we will never get an answer, Mr President”.

One of the session’s most heated moments came within the first 15 minutes, when EFF MP Natasha Louw accused the Freedom Front Plus’s Pieter Groenewald of swearing at the EFF.