Hon Speaker, hon member, let me make one thing quite clear from the outset. I have noted all sorts of public comments to the effect that the government built my home in Nkandla. My residence in Nkandla has been paid for by the Zuma family. [Interjections.] All the buildings and every room we use in that residence were built by ourselves as a family, and not by government. [Applause.] I have never asked government to build a home for me, and it has not done so. The government has not built a home for me.
A necessary distinction must therefore be made between work which I have mandated and initiated in my home, as opposed to the security enhancement undertaken by government. On the basis of a security risk assessment undertaken by a team drawn from the Departments of Defence and Military Veterans, Police, and State Security, I was approached to allow security upgrades or enhancements to be made to my Nkandla residence, which was already in existence. [Applause.]
I was advised that the security upgrades were indeed necessary in terms of the National Key Points Act, Act 102 of 1980. Therefore, all the security enhancements that have been undertaken by the Department of Public Works at my residence in Nkandla have been part of these security requirements.
Any other construction undertaken by government, beyond the premises of my home, such as the accommodation for government security personnel, are not part of my residence. [Applause.]
I have been advised by the Minister of Public Works that he has established a task team of experts to investigate whether supply chain procedures were properly followed by the department when it carried out the security upgrades. In addition, the Auditor-General has been requested to audit all classified prestige projects. The Minister has also instructed the department to co-operate with investigations by any other authorised agency. I fully support these investigations. [Applause.]
We will not pre-empt the outcome of these investigations or respond to speculation at this stage. We must respect the institutions that are investigating, and the processes that have been started. Should the investigations unearth wrongdoing of any kind, the necessary actions will be taken, as we have done in respect of irregularities in other instances. [Applause.]
Hon Speaker, I think it will be very beneficial for your House to have a clearer understanding of my residence, so that, when you discuss my residence, you are not basing it on speculation, but know exactly what has happened. Let me help this House, because the hon members have been asking questions and some have even visited my home. [Laughter.] There has been a lot written and shown on the television about my homes. I think it is important for me to help you, hon Speaker, and your House, to understand the facts as they are, so that even those who will be asking follow-up questions do so within that context.
We, as the Zuma family, have built our home. [Interjections.] Let me give you the background. What, for example, has been shown on television - which has caused a great hullabaloo for many people - are my houses, built by me and my family. They have not been built by government. [Applause.] My home has been there for a long time. At one point, because of violence in our province, much as I wanted to extend my home, I could not, because houses were being burnt down as a result of violence. Indeed, my own residence was burnt down twice. I always replaced the rondavels as they were before because there was still violence.
Once the violence was over, I took the decision to extend my home and I built more modern rondavels. I also fenced my home. I engaged the banks and I am still paying a bond on the first phase of my home. [Applause.] Even at that time, there were many allegations. If hon members remember, it is not the first time that my home has been paraded on television. Those rondavels were paraded, accompanied by lots of allegations. Yet, I am still paying a bond to this day.
As a family, in our own time and right, we decided to upgrade our homestead. There are two homesteads that we have upgraded. The other one does not appear on television because there are no security features on it. That is where, in fact, we started upgrading. We started at our residence called Empindamshaye. All of us have a manner of working together as an extended family. We do things together. When the upgrading at that one had reached the finishing touches stage, we started with the one where I stay.
We got contractors to come and construct, which meant we were extending our home. At that point, what was provided to me then as a Deputy President was static security at a particular level. They built their own place to sleep as they work shifts. There were very limited security features at that rondavel.
When I became the President, all of us in the family agreed to extend our home. Then government came and said that it had to install security features at my residence. By the time government came, the contractors were on site and they had been enlisted by the family and not by the government or Public Works. Government had a plan regarding what it wanted to do. Government wanted to improve the fence, etc. I told government that I had my own plan - which was a comprehensive plan - to extend my home. What then happened was that I allowed government to meet with the contractors who were already on site because government, from a security point of view, insisted that they needed to participate.
So, even the manner in which the question was asked - the question being: have you instructed the Minister to tell the contractors to stop working? Suggests that the contractors were brought by Public Works. Public Works found those contractors constructing my home.
They had to agree to what government wanted them to do at my home. The government had specific things they wanted to do to my houses, not build houses for me. A wrong impression has been created in the country, that the government has built a home for me. That is not true. People are speaking without knowing, saying I have spent so much of the government's money. I have never done so. [Applause.] It is unfair, but I do not want to use harsher words, because you believe that people like me cannot build a home.
What has government done? There are two different things: my homes that are built by me and my family, and the security features that the government wanted to attach to satisfy their own requirements. These are basically in my home, in the main, fencing, bullet-proof windows - not all the windows, specific ones - and the bunker. These are matters that the government ... [Interjections.] Don't ask me, don't ask me! I think you must respect me, because I have respected people on this issue and I don't want to be a football. [Interjections.] [Applause.] You must listen! If you are genuinely concerned, listen, because I want to help you to understand. [Interjections.]