Zuma knew about extravagant home upgrade: ex party veteran

South African President Jacob Zuma, despite his protestations, knew about extravagant renovations to his private home at the taxpayers’ expense, a veteran from his own ANC party said Wednesday.

The embattled Zuma has previously said he did not ask for a multi-million dollar state-funded makeover of his private house after an ombudsman found that he unduly benefitted from the renovations.

“The president knew about it (the renovations) because he was there and he complained. He said ‘please don’t put windows there and put them there and there’,” Ben Turok, a former lawmaker and veteran in the successful fight against South Africa’s apartheid regime, told reporters.

Zuma had in particular complained that the works were being carried out too slowly, the Sapa news agency cited him as saying.

The ombudsman said the $23 million spent on the renovations at Zuma’s country homestead was excessive and ordered him to repay some of the costs, a request the president has turned down.

The cost of the refurbishments, which include a helipad, a swimming pool and even a chicken coop, have ballooned to $23 million from the initial estimate of 65 million rand ($6 million) in 2009.

Zuma has argued that the renovations were for security reasons.

Earlier this month, just two days before a general election which the African National Congress (ANC) won, he justified the work by saying that one of his wives had been raped several years ago.

It is the first time an ANC figure has broken ranks over the controversy.

Zuma, 71, has pointedly refused to comment in detail and blamed the overspending on government officials.

“They did this without telling me,” he told one television channel, “so why should I pay for something I did not ask for.”

The ANC won almost 11.5 million of a total 18.5 million votes cast in the recent elections, its image still benefitting from the legacy of South Africa’s first black president Nelson Mandela.

However this total was fewer votes than the previous elections, dropping around 11 percent in a decade.

Despite South Africa’s economic weight on the continent, it still faces widespread poverty and inequality.