Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Just what is it about African leaders and their infinity for corruption.

(South Africa) Jacob Zuma the South African president is under pressure to resign. It seems that having getting caught out spending government money (tothe tune of £11 million) on improving his somewhat palatial home and then refusing a court order to repay the redirected funds has seen him lose lots of support. But then he didn't win himself any support with his address to the country over the above:
 Zuma said his response to a report by public protector Thuli Madonsela ordering him to repay some of the money was “in good faith” but based on unsound legal advice. “I wish to emphasise that I never knowingly or deliberately set out to violate the constitution,”
Whilst that alone would be enough to sink most peoples careers , Zuma has now been hit with another scandal to explain and that is his associationwith the Gupta family who have been accused of exploiting their relationship with the president to choose pliable candidates for top cabinet and business jobs in a scandal that came to light after the country’s respected finance minister, Nhlanhla Nene, was abruptly sacked in December.

The Gupta family emigrated from India in 1993, seeking business opportunities in post-apartheid South Africa, and now preside over a wide range of corporate interests from mining to IT and media. Their close ties to Zuma, whose son sits on the board of at least six Gupta-owned companies, and extravagant lifestyle have drawn criticism before, perhaps most memorably when they used an air force base to fly in guests for a private wedding.

There was a vote in parliament in which to get Zuma to resign, but the ANC  for some very strange reason (Lots of government funding perhaps) kept him in, by getting itsMPs to vote to keep their man in.

The thing is Zuma never has been clean , in fact I wroteabout the crook in 2008 citing lots of examples. But hey I am talking about Africa where robbing the country blind  and blaming the west for the reason why Africans are so poor is written into the DNA of each and every politician