Zuma to pay back part of $24m swimming pool ‘security upgrade’ costs

South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma will pay back some of the 216 million rand (then worth $24 million) of public funds used to upgrade his private home, his office said Wednesday. Public Protector Thuli Madonsela, the country’s ombudswoman, ruled in 2014 that Zuma and his family had “benefited unduly” from the work on Zuma’s rural residence of Nkandla. Among the supposed security upgrades were a swimming pool described as a fire-fighting facility, a chicken run, a cattle enclosure, an amphitheatre and a visitors’ centre.

To achieve an end to the drawn-out dispute … the President proposes that the determination of the amount he is to pay should be independently and impartially determined.

A statement from Zuma’s office

The exact sum will be determined by the treasury and police ministry, it added. Zuma had previously denied any wrongdoing over the upgrades, with opposition lawmakers often disrupting his parliamentary address by chanting “Pay back the money!" His change of position came ahead of Constitutional Court hearing next week as opposition parties the Democratic Alliance and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) unite in a legal bid to force him to refund the cash. A statement from the presidential office stressed that Zuma "remains critical of a number of factual aspects and legal conclusions” contained in the damning public ombudsman report.

Jacob Zuma