Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Dean Macpherson has firmly shot down a suggestion that his department is responsible for maintaining former President Jacob Zuma’s residence in Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal. Macpherson on maintenance of Zuma’s Nkandla homeIn his reply published this week, Macpherson cited the Public Protector’s 2014 report that found that taxpayers had forked out R246 million in non-security upgrades at the residence. “It is not our responsibility to maintain chicken coops, cattle kraals, amphitheatres, swimming pools, visitor centres or any other non-security upgrades that took place at Nkandla,” said the minister. The infamous “fire pool” demonstration at Zuma’s Nkandla residence in 2015. The residence’s costly non-security upgrades, which the then Public Protector Thuli Madonsela described as “unconscionable and excessive,” became one of the most defining scandals of Zuma’s presidency.