While former ANC chief whip Stone Sizani has denied making comments attributed to him in a newspaper interview – the DA has accused him of failing in his duties to hold President Jacob Zuma accountable.
In a radio interview with Johannesburg talk station Power FM yesterday, the new ambassador to Germany accused the Mail & Guardian newspaper of twisting his words to create an impression that there were differences between Zuma and ANC MPs.
This after the paper quoted him as saying in an interview that ANC MPs had always advised Zuma to pay back some of the money for the controversial R246-million upgrades to his Nkandla homestead.
“The Mail & Guardian has continuously insisted we were thrown under the bus by the president. And I said they must read the report of the ad hoc committee because we have always been consistent that the cabinet must quantify what the public protector was saying is a reasonable amount that the president must pay.
“What is the somersault in that?”
But the DA was not convinced, saying Sizani’s quotes in the original story were an attempt at “revisionism”.
DA chief whip John Steenhuisen accused the ANC of having “misused its majority in parliament to protect the president, instead of holding him accountable”.
Steenhuisen said the DA was “pleased that the outgoing chief whip has recorded the ANC caucus’s position before he is deployed to the diplomatic corps”.
Steenhuisen said that‚ according to Friday’s Mail & Guardian‚ “Sizani now claims Police Minister Nathi Nhleko’s report on the security upgrades to President Jacob Zuma’s private home at Nkandla – which found that the president and his family did not unduly benefit from the upgrades in question – is ‘irrelevant’.”
He quoted Sizani as saying the ANC caucus has been “consistent in position that President Zuma needed to pay back a portion of the Nkandla money in line with the public protector’s decision”. Yet‚ said Steenhuisen‚ “during all three Nkandla ad hoc committees members of the ANC caucus‚ led by , went to great lengths to discredit public protector Thuli Madonsela both in parliament and public”. — Additional reporting Tiso Black Star Group Digital
Sizani ‘failed in his duties’
In a radio interview with Johannesburg talk station Power FM yesterday, the new ambassador to Germany accused the Mail & Guardian newspaper of twisting his words to create an impression that there were differences between Zuma and ANC MPs.
This after the paper quoted him as saying in an interview that ANC MPs had always advised Zuma to pay back some of the money for the controversial R246-million upgrades to his Nkandla homestead.
“The Mail & Guardian has continuously insisted we were thrown under the bus by the president. And I said they must read the report of the ad hoc committee because we have always been consistent that the cabinet must quantify what the public protector was saying is a reasonable amount that the president must pay.
“What is the somersault in that?”
But the DA was not convinced, saying Sizani’s quotes in the original story were an attempt at “revisionism”.
DA chief whip John Steenhuisen accused the ANC of having “misused its majority in parliament to protect the president, instead of holding him accountable”.
Steenhuisen said the DA was “pleased that the outgoing chief whip has recorded the ANC caucus’s position before he is deployed to the diplomatic corps”.
Steenhuisen said that‚ according to Friday’s Mail & Guardian‚ “Sizani now claims Police Minister Nathi Nhleko’s report on the security upgrades to President Jacob Zuma’s private home at Nkandla – which found that the president and his family did not unduly benefit from the upgrades in question – is ‘irrelevant’.”
He quoted Sizani as saying the ANC caucus has been “consistent in position that President Zuma needed to pay back a portion of the Nkandla money in line with the public protector’s decision”. Yet‚ said Steenhuisen‚ “during all three Nkandla ad hoc committees members of the ANC caucus‚ led by , went to great lengths to discredit public protector Thuli Madonsela both in parliament and public”. — Additional reporting Tiso Black Star Group Digital
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