ANC pushes through generous pension for Zuma

The ANC yesterday voted to grant former president Jacob Zuma generous pension benefits, as well as agreeing to continue to pay his medical aid costs.

The Independent Commission for the Remuneration of Public Office Bearers had recommended last month that the pension and medical aid benefits Zuma should get should be equal to 100% of his salary upon retirement; that his estate should apparently continue to benefit from it even after he dies; and that he should continue to get increases to ensure his salary remains in line with that given to the sitting president – in this case President Cyril Ramaphosa.

It was reported earlier this year that Ramaphosa earns about R3.6 million a year. He pledged half of that to a charitable fund managed by the Nelson Mandela Foundation.

The recommendations particularly vexed the Democratic Alliance’s chief whip, John Steenhuisen, who argued passionately against such a move, as he did not believe the former president deserved it, particularly as many analysts and even the ANC itself had blamed him for facilitating large-scale state capture, for having been found to have broken his oath of office by the Constitutional Court and for leading the country into a technical recession.

Steenhuisen also touched on the estimated R100 billion state capture had cost the country. “Haven’t we paid enough? We [already] built a retirement village for Zuma at Nkandla.”