Zuma to pay back money

South Africa’s President
Zuma to pay back money
for home upgrade

Johannesburg - South
Africa's President Jacob
Zuma will pay back some
of the public funds used to
upgrade his private home,
his office said Wednesday,
attempting to end a two-
year scandal that has
plagued his government.
Public Protector Thuli
Madonsela, the country's
ombudswoman, ruled in
2014 that Zuma and his
family had "benefited
unduly" from the work on
Zuma's rural residence of
Nkandla.
Among the supposed
security upgrades were a
swimming pool described
as a fire-fighting facility, a
chicken run, a cattle
enclosure, an amphitheatre
and a visitors' centre.

"To achieve an end to the
drawn-out dispute... the
president proposes that the
determination of the amount
he is to pay should be
independently and
impartially determined,"
said a presidential
statement.
The exact sum will be
determined by the treasury
and police ministry, it
added.
Zuma had previously denied
any wrongdoing over the
upgrades, with opposition
lawmakers often disrupting
his parliamentary speeches
by chanting "Pay back the
money!"
His change of position
came ahead of a
Constitutional Court hearing
next week as opposition
parties the Democratic
Alliance (DA) and Economic
Freedom Fighters (EFF)
unite in a bid to force him
to refund the cash.
The upgrades were valued
in 2014 at about 216 million
rand (then worth $24
million, 22 million euros).
The DA vowed to go ahead
with the legal case, despite
Zuma's apparent
climbdown.
DA leader Mmusi Maimane
told journalists that Zuma
had "done everything to
undermine the work of the
public protector and the
constitution" over the
Nkandla controversy.
All parties are jostling for
advantage ahead of
municipal elections due
later this year that could
see a fall in support for
Zuma's African National
Congress (ANC) party,
which has ruled since the
end of apartheid.
Zuma's statement stressed
that he "remains critical of
a number of factual aspects
and legal conclusions" contained in the damning public ombudsman report.