In March President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that taxpayers would foot former president Jacob Zuma’s legal defence bills, which then amounted to $127,500 and are no doubt mounting by the day. More recently the president’s representative clarified that only the costs of Zuma’s defence during his actual trial will be covered and he will have to convince the state attorney that he is entitled to legal funding for any cases that are not directly linked to the actual corruption case against him. Among other alleged and proven acts of corruption and racketeering, Zuma spent at least $23m of taxpayer money to upgrade his home with a new swimming pool, amphitheatre and cattle enclosure. To give you an idea of how much that is, according to AfricaCheck the country could have trained between 5,125 and 7,935 engineers, doctors or lawyers for that amount of money. Zuma’s corrupt administration is estimated to have cost SA at least $50bn and caused the economy to spiral into crisis, with unemplo...
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