A week after the Jacob G. Zuma Foundation appealed to the public for financial contributions, the crowdfunding is doing “extremely well” towards the former president’s mounting legal costs, foundation spokesperson Mzwanele Manyi said on Wednesday.
Manyi said he was not at liberty to reveal how much Zuma has in the coffers, but said the crowdfunding was doing “extremely well.”
“That account does not belong to the foundation. It belongs to (former) president Zuma. We take the information as it is related from time to time to say the number is growing,” Manyi said.
Some supporters said they were willing to donate to the project, while others accused the former president and the foundation of being “tone-deaf” amid high unemployment and poverty levels in the country.
Manyi said the foundation was cognisant of this fact, and he thanked the public for their generous contributions which speak volumes about public sympathy for the former president.
“We know people are not rich. They are driven by a sense of justice, and compassion for president Zuma,” he said.
“They are driven by the fact that they know that this man has been incarcerated without trial,” Manyi said.
Zuma is recovering in a military hospital outside the Estcourt Correctional Centre where he is serving a 15-month jail sentence for contempt of court.
He was sentenced by the Constitutional Court in June for refusing to appear and give testimony at the Commission for Inquiry into State Capture in Johannesburg.
NM/jn/APA