DURBAN. — In his first public appearance since investigators documented signs of government corruption, South African President Jacob Zuma told supporters on Saturday that he wasn’t scared to go to prison because he had been jailed during apartheid.The Public Protector, an anti-graft watchdog, said in a report last week that a judge should investigate whether Zuma, cabinet members and some state companies acted improperly in their dealings with wealthy Indian businessmen. The Gupta brothers, Ajay, Atul and Rajesh, who are friends of President Zuma and work with his son, have been accused of influencing cabinet appointments and securing sweetheart government tenders. Zuma and the Guptas deny any wrongdoing.
Thousands of protesters called for the president to resign after the 355-page probe was released and some opposition politicians said President Zuma should face criminal charges.
“I’m not afraid of jail. I’ve been to jail during the struggle,” President Zuma told a cheering crowd in his home KwaZulu Natal province.
He spent 10 years as a political prisoner on Robben Island with Nelson Mandela during white-minority rule.
“There’s no longer any space for democratic debate. The only space there, is for court arguments by lawyers. That’s not democracy,” Zuma added.
The Public Protector’s investigation stopped short of saying crimes had been committed, but recommended that a judge take the investigation forward. In one case, the report cited “extraordinary and unprecedented” government intervention in a private business dispute involving President Zuma’s friends and his son.
This, it said, may have created “a possible conflict of interest between the President as head of state and his private interest as a friend and father”.
— Reuters/HR.