The Presidency has denied there's been any "political instruction" to the State Attorney not to recover the estimated R32-million it paid for Jacob Zuma's corruption trial litigation – but won't guarantee that court-ordered litigation to recover the money will be launched before that claim prescribes.

"I can't comment on timelines, you'll have to ask the State Attorney's office," Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya told News24 on Friday.

He was responding to a question about whether he could assure the public that summons for the litigation costs would be issued against Zuma before May 2024 [when the Solicitor-General says the claim against the former president will prescribe].

Magwenya was at pains to stress that, should the court-ordered summons not be issued against Zuma on time, it would be the State Attorney who would potentially face contempt of court charges and not the Presidency.

This is despite the fact that the State Attorney has identified the Presidency as its "client" in the potential Zuma legal costs litigation.

"The SCA [Supreme Court of Appeal] order was given to the State Attorney, not the Presidency," Magwenya said.

These assertions have done nothing to convince the Democratic Alliance's (DA's) Glynnis Breytenbach, who has repeatedly enquired about the State Attorney's now two year, eight month delay in acting on the SCA's order that it "take all necessary steps, including the institution of civil proceedings, to recover the amounts paid by the state for Mr Zuma's legal costs".

"The State Attorney has been ordered, in unambiguous terms, to recover monies spent on Mr Zuma's legal costs. The court has described the monies so spent as being akin to giving Mr Zuma a 'blank cheque' with which to litigate," Breytenbach told News24. 

"Despite this, the State Attorney has done virtually nothing to action this retrieval of funds, preferring to obfuscate and prevaricate around issues of 'its client'. The client in question is none other than the Office of the Presidency. This is disgraceful, prescription is running, and is due to run out in May 2024. They clearly intend to conspire to allow this massive debt to prescribe rather than harm the electoral ambitions of the ANC," she added.

Zuma has reportedly been campaigning for the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal in recent weeks.

While Magwenya admitted that it had "taken time" for the court-ordered summons against Zuma to be issued, he insisted the matter was "being addressed". 

Asked whether a political instruction had been given to not pursue the claim, as alleged by Breytenbach, he referred to a message sent to him by an unidentified official.

It stated: "Good afternoon my brother. I am not aware of any political instructions to me or the State Attorney to not recover the costs. The legal process has taken [time] because we have to work all the historical information at our disposal to make sure that we do the best we can to recover all the costs."

It is unclear, at this point, why it has taken the State Attorney well over two years to collect information about how much money it had given Zuma, given that lawyers for the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) had obtained and submitted detailed information about these claims, as part of the party's successful challenge to the former president's untrammelled legal funding by the state.

That litigation, which was also pursued by the DA, saw the SCA confirm there was no legal justification for the Presidency to fund Zuma's defence in the arms deal-related corruption, racketeering, tax evasion and fraud case against him. 

The SCA also endorsed the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria's order that the State Attorney should do everything legally possible to recover the taxpayers' money spent on Zuma's corruption trial litigation.

While Zuma had argued that withdrawal of state funding of these costs would be a violation of his constitutional rights, the SCA in 2021 rejected that argument and found that "allowing officials to resist being held accountable, by drawing on state resources to obstruct or delay a prosecution" subverted the public's interests.

It further found that Zuma had been given untrammelled state funding of his legal costs from the Presidency in an unlawful "blank cheque" arrangement that it slammed as "egregious".

Judge Nathan Ponnan wrote on behalf of the SCA, "A repayment order may well be essential to remedy the abuse of public resources; vindicate the rule of law; and reaffirm the constitutional principles of accountability and transparency, especially by a former incumbent of the highest office in the land.

"Simply setting aside the decision to pay, without ordering an accounting and repayment, would achieve none of those crucial remedial objectives".

Following that ruling, State Attorney Isaac Chowe filed a July 2021 report listing what the Presidency had previously spent on Zuma's legal costs.

In that report, he stated that efforts to recover those costs "will commence by a letter of demand which is intended to curtail possible legal costs and court processes in the event that the amount demanded is tendered and paid".

"If the payment is not made on demand, summons will be issued," he added.

That was well over two years ago.

In September, Solicitor-General Fhedzisani Pandelani told News24 that the original R18.2-million in taxpayers' money that the state could show that Zuma had spent on legal costs had now doubled – and this was what had caused the delay in summons being issued. 

He said: "There are other files [related to Zuma's litigation] that have been brought to [the team investigating Zuma's corruption trial spending] and they're saying it will be reckless and irresponsible of us to rush to court when in fact we can still get [additional claims] from here…. This is an issue that cannot just be swept under the carpet… I take no joy in talking about these issues, but somebody has got to follow court orders."

He said the state hoped to issue summons against Zuma by the end of September.

The State Attorney has confirmed that this has not happened and - in their last communication - said they were still trying to consult with their clients in this matter, which they confirmed was the Presidency.