Dickens’s Artful Dodger is no match for our president

REMEMBER the Artful Dodger in the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist? Trained by Fagin, he led a gang of street urchins skilled in the art of pickpocketing in London.

Well, we have our own Artful Dodger. But he’s not a street urchin but the leading citizen of the country.

Trained as a guerrilla fighter in the bush, he waged a hit-and-run battle with the apartheid forces during the armed Struggle.

Now his mastery of guerrilla tactics serves him well as the most powerful leader plunders state resources.

Ever since he stepped on to the political stage he has been ducking from the law and avoiding responsibility. Question after question, case after case and scandal after scandal, he has brushed them all aside.

A frustrated opposition walked out of Parliament when Zuma wouldn’t disclose how much taxpayers’ money he used to avoid facing the 783 corruption charges.

Even more incriminating, the president has been dodging the taxman.

According to Jacques Pauw’s book, The President’s Keepers the president owes the receiver of revenue R63 million. This is a serious offence no law-abiding, loyal citizen dare commit.

If Pauw’s allegations are true, Zuma might be dragged back to the Constitutional Court to face criminal charges and even impeachment.

But this could be a rather long shot. Apparently, the Guptas even have their fingers in our justice system.

The latest allegations of tax evasion will be a taxing time for Zuma. He has loyal men and women in strategic positions in the government who will bend over backwards to get him out of trouble. And there’s his friend in the tax office, Tom Moyane, who could play a pivotal role in blocking any inquiry set up to probe the shortfalls in revenue collection.

Only once, after numerous denials, was Zuma found culpable of using public money to build his lavish Nkandla mansion. Then, too, he did not face prosecution.

Dickens’s Artful Dodger is no match for Zuma. The Artful Dodger is a petty thief while Zuma is a master crook par excellence. Zuma could teach him how to pick the public purse.

He’s a petty thief but Zuma’s a master crook

Chatsworth, Durban