/ 6 February 2014

DA files to court in bid to get Nkandla report

Da Files To Court In Bid To Get Nkandla Report

The DA filed an affidavit on Thursday in its court battle to get access to the Nkandla report, parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko said.

"There must be proper and legitimate processes to get to the bottom of what happened," Mazibuko said in a statement.

"[Jacob] Zuma's ANC seems determined to prevent this."

The Democratic Alliance filed a replying affidavit in the high court in the Western Cape requesting the disclosure of the public works task team report on security upgrades to President Jacob Zuma's private home in Nkandla.

Mazibuko last year tried to gain access to the January 2013 report in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act, but was rejected.

She then turned to the high court in the Western Cape, which ruled in October that the DA's bid for the report to be released was indeed urgent.

The court set the matter down for February 18.

'Not satisfied'
In December, Cabinet resolved to release the report and held a media briefing.

Mazibuko said the DA was not satisfied that the document released was the actual report.

"The nature and extent of the differences between the December 2013 and January 2013 reports have never been revealed," she said.

"If parts of the task team's original report had been redacted this would be apparent from missing pages, missing paragraphs, missing footnotes, blacked-out text, and/or missing or incomplete internal cross-references."

However, the report had pages, paragraphs and footnotes sequentially numbered.

It appeared that the report had been re-written in a way that hid the nature and extent of any exclusions, Mazibuko said.

The December 2013 report did not have the January 2013 submission date.

Mazibuko said the DA would continue to push to gain access to the full document. – Sapa