http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/12/world/africa/south-africa-jacob-zuma-corruption.html 2014-11-11 11:55:14 South Africa Consolidates Graft Inquiry Against Zuma The decision revived accusations that the leader has shrugged off, saying the improvements at his homestead were related to his office’s security requirements. === LONDON — For opponents of President At issue is the president’s personal homestead at Nkandla in the rolling, green hills of his native KwaZulu-Natal Province — or rather the amount of public money that has been spent on enhancing and extending it, equivalent to about $23 million. In the latest turn in the long-running drama, the South African police acknowledged on Monday that, under pressure from the opposition Democratic Alliance and other adversaries of the president, a series of localized investigations against Mr. Zuma in the Nkandla case have been centralized into a single national investigation. The announcement came just days before the expected publication of a parliamentary inquiry into the issue. “The charges were laid by opposition party members at many police stations,” a police spokesman, Solomon Makgale, said, according to Nonetheless, the police decision served to revive accusations that Mr. Zuma has simply shrugged off, saying the improvements at the homestead were related to the security requirements of his office. For the opposition — principally the Democratic Alliance and the firebrand Economic Freedom Fighters led by Julius Malema — the case has served to highlight once more the chasm between the elite and ordinary people. Unemployment in South Africa is around 25 percent, and many complain that the economic promises made by their leaders when apartheid formally ended 20 years ago have not been fulfilled. Last March, Thuli Madonsela, South Africa’s public protector, whose office functions as a national ombudsman, found in a report that Mr. Zuma “benefited unduly” in a manner “inconsistent with his office” from the state-funded improvements. The expansion has been widely chronicled in South African newspaper reports that detailed a swimming pool, a visitors’ center, a cattle enclosure and an amphitheater, among other additions. The public protector’s 444-page report in March said the renovations also included a chicken coop. The swimming pool was described as firefighting equipment to justify the cost. But those allegations had little discernible impact Ms. Madonsela’s report also urged Mr. Zuma to repay “a reasonable percentage of the cost of the measures,” arguing that he “tacitly accepted the implementation of all measures at his residence and has unduly benefited from the enormous capital investment in the nonsecurity installations at his private residence.” In a statement from his office, Mr. Zuma said at the time that he had “consistently been concerned about the allegations of impropriety around procurement in the Nkandla project.” It said he would study the findings of the report and communicate his response “in due course.” In a letter Mr. Zuma told Ms. Madonsela that he was awaiting Parliament’s response to the Nkandla inquiry and that he ventured “to suggest that you likewise should allow this important institution of democracy an opportunity to do its work.” Mr. Zuma has also suggested that the minister of police, Nkosinathi Nhleko, a veteran of the African National Congress, should determine whether he must repay money spent on the Nkandla project. Additionally, a parliamentary commission is expected to