The South African government has suspended further payments of ruling party leader Jacob Zuma’s legal costs over his impending corruption trial, it was reported on Monday.
The Star quoted the head of the state attorney’s office, Aletta Mosidi, as saying that government would not pay Zuma’s future legal costs until he provides a detailed account of how he had spent the R9-million previously received from the state.
”We have to be accountable to the Treasury and the Auditor General about how taxpayers’ money was spent,” she told the paper.
”It is not that we are not prepared to pay Zuma’s legal costs, but we can’t do so without a definite idea of how we are being charged and what we are using the state money to pay for,” she said.
She said she recently received a letter from Zuma’s lawyer, Michael Hulley, threatening legal action over the state’s failure to reinstate payment of part of the legal costs of the African National Congress (ANC) president.
”But the ball is in Mr Hulley’s court … It is only when we receive an itemised bill from him that this issue can be resolved.”
Mosidi declined to comment on the report when Agence France-Press contacted her, while Zuma’s lawyers were unavailable for comment.
Zuma (65), who toppled President Thabo Mbeki from the helm of the ruling party in December and should be the party’s candidate at general elections next year, is to go on trial in August on charges of fraud, corruption, racketeering and money-laundering. He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
Strained
Relations between Zuma and Mbeki have been increasingly strained, with the ANC president saying in an interview last week that power lies with the ruling party and not the head of state.
”Power lies in the ANC,” Zuma told Britain’s internationally circulated Financial Times newspaper.
”It’s the ANC that wins elections, the ANC that has the power to identify people who must be part of the government … If he [Mbeki] is not part of the ANC leadership, he doesn’t have authority.”
Zuma ousted Mbeki at an ANC conference in December, riding a pro-poor ticket with the backing of the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party — an alliance that has reportedly been under strain in recent weeks.
Confidence in the South African economy has dipped on the back of divisions within the ruling party and slowing growth fuelled by a national electricity crisis.
On Thursday, Zuma backed the idea of a referendum on the reintroduction of the death penalty to deal with rampant violent crime, despite the ANC’s stance against capital punishment.
”I said, if you want a referendum, I think we must speak on it,” he told journalists in Pretoria on Thursday evening, also calling for stricter penalties for crime.
”Democracy does not suppress the freedom of speech.”
The death penalty was abolished by the Constitutional Court shortly after the ANC took over the reins of government in 1994 following the collapse of the apartheid regime. — AFP
