A newly published report on excessive upgrades to South African President Jacob Zuma’s private home in Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal, prompted fresh calls for his impeachment, according to a report in AllAfrica.

Newspapers around South Africa carried headlines this week of the Nakndla report, describing the incident as a national scandal and questioning roles of other “key staff in the presidency.”

Zuma and his family unduly benefited from upgrades made to his private home, Public Protector Thuli Madonsela found.

“It is common cause that in the name of security, government built for the president and his family in his private (home), a visitors center, cattle kraal and chicken run, swimming pool, and amphitheater among others,” the report said, according to IndependentOnline.

The upgrades were “excessive and luxurious…grotesque and unconscionable in a country struggling to find political and economic solutions to massive inequality, a country where millions of his fellow citizens live in very difficult material circumstances, in shacks without basic services, without food security, without even personal safety,” an editorial in AllAfrica stated.

South African newspaper Beeld published a page-one editorial, saying Zuma was no longer qualified to lead the country, according to AllAfrica.

“He wastes valuable taxpayer money and cannot be trusted to continue governing the country. Zuma is a national scandal,” Beeld said.

The Nkandla report said 246 million rand ($22.5 million) was spent on Zuma’s private home, and that he conducted himself in a way that “could accordingly be legitimately construed as misleading Parliament.”

Newspapers called for accountability from the presidency.

Not so fast, the ANC said in a statement. “The State has not spent any money on the private dwellings of the President in Nkandla.

According to the ANC statement, “when the President affirmed in Parliament that he built his own home and that he has a bond, he did not mislead Parliament. The Public Protector in her investigation found that the bond on the private dwellings was declared in Parliament.”

However, the ANC statement acknowledged omissions in the security clearance of some people involved in the project, price inflation, “maladministration, abuse of state resources and deviations from proper procurement procedures.”

Many South Africans across the political spectrum are calling for Zuma’s resignation and impeachment, according to an AllAfrica editorial, entitled “Why President Zuma Must Go.” These calls seem justified in the light of the thoroughly researched and meticulously presented report, the editorial said.

As the leader of South Africa, the president is “the ultimate guardian of the resources of the people of South Africa” and “failed to discharge his responsibilities” in this regard, according to the editorial.

Other front-page comments regarding the Nkandla scandal included this from Mail&Guardian, with the headline, “Stop protecting Number One.” The report described Nkandla as a “monument to squandered resources and a symbol of everything that is wrong with South Africa under Zuma.” It also referred to previous South African President Thabo Mbeki, forced to resign in 2008.

“The ANC took a momentous decision in September 2008 when it ‘recalled’ a president (Mbeki). Today, the ANC could do the same — or at least ensure Zuma is not the party’s presidential candidate in May and spare the country impeachment proceedings.”

Madonsela’s Nkandla report said Zuma should have asked questions about the scale, costs, and affordability of security upgrades, but failed to do so. She recommended that he pay back a percentage of the cost.

With a conciliatory tone, the ANC said in its statement, that it “reaffirms its confidence in the work of the institutions established to support and strengthen our constitutional democracy.

“We will continue to work tirelessly to bring South Africa together to achieve the united, non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous nation envisaged by the constitution that so many have sacrificed so much for.”

The Sowetan newspaper asked, “Is this what they fought for? Is this what the ANC founders had in mind…When Zuma joined the delegation of ANC leaders in exile to broker a peaceful transitional arrangement from apartheid to democracy, did he have this in mind?”