{{South African opposition leader Hellen Zille was prevented on Sunday from visiting President Jacob Zuma\u2019s private rural residence, at the centre of a row over a $29-million state-funded upgrade.}}<\/p>\n
Police cited safety reasons for denying Zille and her six-member delegation passage to Zuma\u2019s homestead, where they wanted to inspect how public money was used to fund the president\u2019s private property.<\/p>\n
Supporters of the ruling African National Congress formed a barricade near the home, which is a cluster of modern thatched-roof Zulu huts.<\/p>\n
The opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) had raised alarm over the public funding of the development, and said their visit was for oversight purposes.<\/p>\n
Police had to prevent a group of some 500 ANC supporters from charging towards Zille\u2019s delegation, while others laid on the road to prevent them from driving through.<\/p>\n
Zille took to Twitter to vent her anger and post pictures of the property, located in KwaNxamalala village, north of the eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe police line blocking us from proceeding after they let ANC buses through,\u201d read one of her tweets, accompanied by a picture.<\/p>\n
She later went to a nearby police station to file a charge under the Gatherings Act \u2013 which regulates public gatherings and demonstrations \u2013 against the ANC supporters.<\/p>\n
The supporters followed her to the station, shouting \u201cgo away\u201d.
\nOne of them was arrested for possession of an unlicenced firearm and will appear in court on Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe arrested a man for carrying an unlicenced weapon and discharging it in public,\u201d said police spokesman Jay Naicker.<\/p>\n
Zille later told journalists that by using public funds to built his home, Zuma had \u201clost a right to call it a private residence\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe never intended to go inside Zuma\u2019s home, we only wanted to gather opposite his compound on a public road,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne day we will look at it as a monument to the fight against corruption.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zuma\u2019s office called Zille\u2019s visit \u201cmischievous\u201d and said that \u201cthe DA\u2019s conduct smacks of a disingenuous publicity gimmick\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{South African opposition leader Hellen Zille was prevented on Sunday from visiting President Jacob Zuma\u2019s private rural residence, at the centre of a row over a $29-million state-funded upgrade.}} Police cited safety reasons for denying Zille and her six-member delegation passage to Zuma\u2019s homestead, where they wanted to inspect how public money was used to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-3927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3927\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3927"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=3927"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=3927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}