Who wouldn’t want to serve?

IT’S a good thing President Jacob Zuma confined himself to the niceties of constitutional law and didn’t plead poverty when he faced questions in parliament this week. He insisted the minister of police, whom he appoints, will decide if he has to pay back any of the taxpayer money spent on his Nkandla private home.

Money itself should not really be the issue for Zuma. A new survey this week puts him among the world’s highest-paid leaders. At R2.75-million a year, Zuma comes in fourth in the world rankings, topped by US President Barack Obama (R5-million), Canada’s Stephen Harper (R3.2-million) and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on R2.9-million, according to the CNN Money survey.

By just about any standard, Zuma has been a dismal president, so it is hard to see why he would be justified in taking such a generous helping from the public purse, especially given the habitual clamour about high private sector salaries and the yawning wealth gap in the country.

Of course, Zuma and other elected officials will claim that the rate at which they are paid is out of their hands, to be decided by an “independent” body, which is very convenient, and lucrative.

Consider, too, those whom Zuma outranks in the pay scales, among them UK Prime Minister David Cameron (R2.6-million), Japan’s Shinzo Abe (R2.5-million) and France’s François Hollande at R2.5-million. Among Brics countries, Zuma is tops, with Vladimir Putin being rewarded R1.7-million for his efforts at restoring Russian pride.

It’s not just Zuma: we have mayors of towns with potholed roads earning more than some world leaders. A mayor in South Africa can command R1.15-million to bear the load of the chains of office; by contrast, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is said to get R363 000, while Chinese President Xi Jinping gets a mere R264 000.

Tough job, public service in South Africa, but someone’s got to do it. Is the taxpayer getting value for money? Few, if any, would say we are.