South Africans fear Zuma might be financial idiot rather than crook

As Jacob Zuma continues to deny any prior knowledge of R250-million upgrades to his Nkandla not-compound, South Africans say he is innocent until proven guilty. “Which is even more depressing,” explained a spokesman. “Because it implies that the man in charge of our national finances has Grade R maths skills and is more or less catatonic.”

Zuma has insisted that he had no knowledge of the state’s decision to spend hundreds of millions of Rands on his not-compound.

“The President, Lord Of All Elephants And Master Of The Lightning, knows nothing about this project,” explained a spokesman. “He knows nothing about how tax money is spent. He knows nothing about accounting in general. He knows nothing about all sorts of things. Pretty much everything. In fact, I cannot stress enough to you how little the President knows. Imagine knowing nothing about anything, then halve it, and that’s more than he knows.”

This morning, South Africans agreed that Zuma was innocent until proven guilty, but that this position threw up some “horrifying new possibilities”.

“If we accept that he didn’t steal taxpayers’ money, then we have to accept that he really didn’t have a clue about what was happening in his own back yard,” explained legal expert, Prima Faycee. “I can’t speak for Mr Zuma, but to be that clueless about your surroundings, and that naïve about money – well, that would take a very special kind of imbecile.”

She said she found it “alarming” that the man in charge of all state expenditure apparently had the financial acumen of “three-year-old in a sweet shop”.

However, the Presidency hit back, saying that Zuma was making “massive strides” in his financial literacy course.

“We are already onto Season 3 of Takalani Sesame, where we learn how to count up to 30, which is obviously hard because you need fingers, toes, and then another set of toes,” explained Presidency tutor, Professor Calculus Cele. “But Comrade Blade Nzimande is always happy to lend us his toes. Even if he does sometimes threaten the numbers with re-education if they don’t add up the way he wants.”

Cele added that Zuma had shown an interest in counting-based games, including Monopoly, but said that there had been “some hiccups”.

“He said Monopoly was just like real life, because you get handed lots of money at the start without having to make it yourself, and then you slowly spend it on big houses,” he said. “However, he demanded that we cover up the ‘Go Directly To Jail’ block, as it was counterrevolutionary and racist.”

- hayibo