Johannesburg:

South Africa President Jacob Zuma’s £13 million of taxpayer-funded upgrades to his estate have been labelled “obscene” by a politician allowed into the compound.

A group of South African MPs inspected the controversial private Nkandla country retreat in KwaZulu Natal, 120 miles north of Durban on Wednesday, to confirm a police report that found the improvements to be essential.

The embattled president has had renovations worth £13 million carried out on the estate since he was elected president in 2009 — something that has caused outrage across the country.

Zuma claims that the work was carried out without his knowledge, and that the money has been spent on essential security provision for a head of state.

His critics insist the money has funded a luxury makeover of the estate.

And yesterday MPs arrived at the heavily guarded facilities to investigate. Mmusi Maimane, leader of South Africa’s Democratic Alliance opposition party, told The Daily Telegraph: “It sticks out like a sore thumb amid a sea of poverty, this opulent display by the president. It is simply bizarre to claim you need a visitors’ centre for someone’s private residence.

“To me, the clear indication is that we have a president who failed in his executive ethics — but furthermore, he cannot claim he did not know about it.”

A police report in May cleared Zuma of any wrong doing and found that he was not liable for any costs for “non-security” features.

Nathi Nhleko, the police minister, said the swimming pool; amphitheatre; kraal; chicken run and visitors’ centre were security features.

He showed videos including a demonstration of how a firepool works and an interview with a “cultural expert” about the “spiritual value” of a cattle kraal or pen.

The police minister said an expert had agreed the pool was “the best water source available on site to replenish the fire engine” in the event of a fire.

An “amphitheatre” was, he said, necessary to prevent soil erosion by vehicles including fire engines and armoured police vehicles using the adjoining road. It also served as an assembly point for polygamist Mr Zuma’s large family in the event of an emergency. But Mr Maimane said: “It cannot be justified as security by any stretch of the imagination. The swimming pool was an ordinary swimming pool. We all know what security looks like in this country and that wasn’t it. It was obscene.”

The MPs toured the 21 houses that were used by his security guards and saw where the staff were sleeping on mattresses on the floor. Mr Zuma said that the properties cost pounds 310,000, a figure greeted with astonishment. The money spent on Mr Zuma’s home is in stark contrast to the security of previous South African presidents. FW de Klerk, the country’s last white president who left office in 1994, got pounds 12,200 for upgrades and pounds 1.65? million was spent on Nelson Mandela’s home. Mr Maimane said the visit had only strengthened his resolve to hold the president to account.

— The Telegraph Group Limited, London, 2015