Defiant Zuma insists ‘pay back the money’ question is premature

Presidential question time in the National Assembly continued to be plagued by high drama yesterday.

First it was delayed by more than an hour as MPs squabbled over whether President Jacob Zuma should take questions on the Nkandla scandal or not.

Opposition parties, led by the EFF and the DA, demanded that Zuma start the session by answering questions stemming from when he was interrupted in August last year and tell the house when he would “pay back the money”.

But National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete would have none of that, as she insisted that the Nkandla matter would not be addressed by Zuma on the list of six questions that he was specifically scheduled to respond to yesterday.

Mbete said the question had expired at the end of last year in terms of the rules of the house when parliament went for Christmas recess.

MPs bickered for more than an hour on the issue but Zuma dismissed the question as premature when he addressed the house.

He said he had responded to the matter when it was first raised in the August 21 session before he was interrupted.

Zuma said he had never ignored dates set aside for him to answer questions in parliament, including from when he was interrupted in August 21 last year.

The matter is expected to be discussed at the meeting of the national assembly’s programming committee this morning.

Turning to Malema’s question on whether he was deliberately weakening crime fighting institutions such as the Hawks and the National Prosecuting Authority to prevent them from reinstating the corruption charges against him that were dropped in April, Zuma said the claim was baseless.

“I’ve never interfered with any institution and I will never do so. And secondly, I have no case against me. he NPA dropped the case, not influenced by me on its own accord,” said the president.