A letter written by Public Works Minister Thulas Nxesi to the Speaker of Parliament, Max Sisulu, suggests he may have lied about the Top Secret classification of his department’s Nkandlagate report.

City Press has obtained a copy of the letter to Sisulu, dated June 19, in which Nxesi states the Nkandla report was classified by a task team investigating the R20 million spent on President Jacob Zuma’s private residence.

In the letter, Nxesi tells Sisulu that the report could not be given to the Auditor-General or the Special Investigating Unit until it was declassified by “the authors”.

But Nxesi has since changed his tune after

State Security Minister Siyabonga Cwele distanced himself from the report’s classification. Nxesi now admits it was he who classified the report top secret.

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