R2K Statement on Nkandla: Abuse of national security is a symbol of the Zuma presidency

The Right2Know Campaign condemns the security cluster ministers’ announcement that they will challenge the Public Protector’s report on Nkandla in the High Court.

This move is the latest example of the use of ‘state security’ structures to infringe on democratic processes and undermine accountability.

We note that the ministers have already gone to great lengths to obstruct the Public Protector’s Nkandla investigation, starting as early as May 2013, when the security cluster ministers and Chief State Law Adviser met with the public protector in an apparent attempt to persuade her to halt the investigation[1].  Since then, the Ministers have made public statements to discredit the report’s findings before it was even released, and already made one abortive attempt in court to prevent the report’s release.

South Africans need to take note of how easily expansive “National Security” priorities are be distorted and can encroach on democratic principles; in the wrong hands, “national security” can and has been used as an excuse to stifle debate, undermine accountability and protect the powerful from embarrassment.

The outrageous spending of R246-million to upgrade the President’s personal home (including luxury features that were not related to security), is itself a distortion of “national security” priorities, especially since it used funds that were ear-marked for pro-poor urban upgrading programmes [2]. Nkandla is a case study of why “national security” matters need to be subject to greater independent and public oversight, by bodies such as the Public Protector.

The potential harm of this approach to “national security” is hard to underestimate. Among other things, a trend towards more security-statist approaches to government has led to:

• The public’s right to know is undermined: Government information which should be available to the public is too often withheld, including sometimes from Parliament. The same thinking has shaped the over-broad and draconian Protection of State Information Bill (the Secrecy Bill) that currently awaits President Zuma’s signature. The use of classification to try prevent the Public Protector from accessing information is evidence that our concerns are not groundless;
• The public’s right to protest is under attack: The police have been militarised and have adopted increasingly violent responses to protests, embodied by the massacre at Marikana;
• There are increasing concerns that the State-Security structures and Crime Intelligence are vulnerable to misuse for political purposes, and above all;
• These are eroding public trust in our institutions.

In other words, the misuse of “national security” priorities to control and manipulate public processes actually increases societal conflict and instability.

The security cluster ministers must abandon this course of action and allow the Public Protector’s report to be dealt with in Parliament. Just as importantly, the President and his new Ministers must reflect on the damage done to our democracy in the name of “national security”, and commit itself to a new mode of governance that is guided by the constitutional values of openness, participation and accountability.

[1] Secure in Comfort, pages 96-103
[2] Funds were reallocated from the Department of Public Works’ Inner City Regeneration and the Dolomite Risk Management Programmes