While legal eagles and expert commentators far cleverer than I debate the national security, public interest and the legality surrounding Jacob Zuma's dropped charges, may I be so crass as to ask "what about our money"?

It appears that Leonard McCarthy, Bulelani Ngcuka and probably others "stole" R110 million of our taxes to fight an illegal political battle on behalf of their benefactor then-president Thabo Mbeki.

My question to the legal eagles is, why can't we, as taxpayers, launch a civil action lawsuit to recover some of these funds from the individuals responsible? A decade ago a brief glimmer of light radiated over Africa's corrupt darkness when tiny Lesotho, ably assisted by South African lawyers, won a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against a Canadian contracting company who bribed their government.

Are the South African taxpayers now expected to abandon our similar opportunity to recover billions of dollars from the British, German and French arms deal corrupters to protect our corrupted government officials?

The NPA has already dropped its charges against the French, how can this be a matter of national security or in the public interest when the opposite is so obvious?
 

Thint has already announced its R45 million "donation" to the ANC in the French parliament for goodness sake. How difficult can it be to prove the financial cost this had on the taxpayer?

Where are our lawyers when we so desperately need them to shine a light on our own corruption?

John Buchanan

Somerset West