The Constitutional Court will decide early this year whether to hear and rule on the bid by the EFF to force Zuma to pay back the money spent on nonsecurity upgrades at Nkandla.
“I’m through,” President Jacob Zuma told National Assembly speaker Baleka Mbete on Thursday. He was confirming that he had finished his answer.
“I’m not sure if I’m telling the truth,” Zuma told the House a little later. He had muddled up his papers, and was talking about whether the answer in front of him corresponded to the question he was to answer.
Stripped of all context, Zuma had interesting things to say when he appeared before Parliament the day after a deputy minister had effectively accused his administration of having been captured by the Gupta family, and in the same week the former leader of his party’s caucus said much the same thing.
But even as political tectonic plates seemed to be shifting, Zuma went backwards to a line he used half a decade ago: he knows nothing about alleged interference by the Gupta family in the running of his government, and only one legal authority that can appoint Cabinet ministers.
Except this time, he omitted the strong language.
“I never offered [Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi] Jonas minister; that’s why he is deputy minister,” Zuma told Parliament. “If Jonas says he was offered by the Guptas, you will be well placed to ask the Guptas or Jonas.”
Democratic Alliance leader Mmusi Maimane had asked Zuma whether he had “consulted any person” before appointing Des van Rooyen as finance minister. Zuma, reading a written answer, appeared to misunderstand the question. “The Constitution does not require me to consult anyone before I appoint or remove a minister or a deputy minister.”
In 2013, answering a question about contact between his Cabinet and the Gupta family, Zuma invoked openness, saying “any member of the public within South Africa and beyond our borders is free to contact members of my Cabinet, the executive or the public service directly”.
Thursday’s denial harks back to one Zuma made on the Guptas in 2011, when then Cabinet secretary Cassius Lubisi issued a statement on behalf of the presidency.
Zuma, Lubisi said in response to reports that ministers were visiting the Guptas at home, was unaware of any member of his Cabinet being ordered about in his, Zuma’s, name.
“The allegation that persons other than the president could have informed members of Cabinet and deputy ministers of the changes in Cabinet is preposterous,” Lubisi said.
On Thursday that sort of language was absent, replaced with apparent puzzlement at the question.
“If there can be any influence in how government does things it can only be the ruling party, which would not necessarily come to tell you: ‘Do this and this,’ ” Zuma told Parliament, before Maimane was told by Mbete to leave Parliament, leading to a walkout by his caucus from a House already missing Economic Freedom Fighters, who had boycotted the sitting.