Free education vs R4 billion presidential jet

After Armscor had announced an acquisition process that could make the president fly in luxury in a larger, flashier and expensive plane than the one he uses now, South African citizens (taxpayers) started to grumble and many questions are being raised in every corner of SA about this request that will cause the country to loose an amount of R4 billion on one jet.

Private bedroom suite, bathroom and a boardroom, these are some of the things that are needed in this jet at tax payer’s costs. Are these requirements necessary? Well nobody has come forward to explain to the people, that why are these requirements necessary for the presidential jet.

Is this going to be another saga like the Arms deal saga, that is still an unsolved controversial issue and still not yet clear to the taxpayers,  who benefited from that deal or was that deal necessary in the first place?

Is this going to be another “Nkandla” saga that is still haunting the president today? Well, seemingly there is a resemblance in these three cases and the biggest question is, are the people of South Africa happy about this and where is it going to take the country to?

Recently there was a big pandemonium in the country when the universities were shut down because of the student’s revolt, when students were demanding free education from the government that was promised to them by the current regime. This hope was given to the people in 1994 by the ruling party (ANC) in their manifesto that there will be free education in SA and after 21 years of the country’s democracy there is still no “free education” in SA instead there was a rise in school fees and that resulted in #feesmustfall.

The government is still trying to make means to generate or find the money for the education of the South African youth, who are the future of the country and the government hasn’t found the money yet.

The question is, whether the government is going to be able to buy the R4 billion jet for the president or fund the education of the South African children or both?