David Lewis‚ head of the country's leading non-governmental anti-graft agency‚ Corruption Watch‚ has criticised Police Minister Nathi Nhleko's report exonerating President Jacob Zuma of having to pay anything for the upgrades to his Nkandla home.

Nhleko yesterday concluded that upgrades to the home including a swimming pool‚ chicken run‚ cattle kraal and amphitheatre were all vital “security features” that the government should pay for.

Lewis said: “We are dismayed‚ but not surprised by the report and its conclusions. The report was commissioned by the president‚ the very person implicated in the scandal‚ from someone who owes his position to the self-same president. The report has no credibility and it will not bring closure to this whole sordid episode.”

He said that Nhleko's report “cannot stand against the report prepared by the public protector” which was a “constitutionally empowered body led by a person of unimpeachable integrity and independence”.

“We have the spectre of another key minister having to protect his president by making a public laughing stock of himself by attaching his name and his high office to palpably ridiculous conclusions‚” Lewis said. “We have what is effectively an attempt to discredit the Office of the Public Protector. And no doubt we will soon witness another humiliating spectacle when this doctored report is placed before a parliamentary committee.”

Corruption Watch said in a statement that Nhleko's report "highlights the current trend that allows‚ if not encourages‚ our leaders to act with impunity".

"It further demonstrates a continual failure to hold our leaders accountable‚ most often at the expense of taxpayers‚ in spite of recommendations from institutions established to safeguard the very rights and interests of the general public."