Over the years the Presidential Handbook which allegedly contains the rules for expenditure on perks such as cars, housing and travel for the top-ranking government officials, has come under fire from various quarters, especially when used by ANC members to justify some of their more gratuitous and ostentatious spending.
Strangely, from what I could gather, no one apart from the ruling members of government have laid eyes on this elusive, yet much referenced Handbook. And presumably this is a different Handbook from that which governs Ministerial perks, which also begs the question of why there are two different Handbooks.
Following demands from the opposition Democratic Alliance to make the Presidential Handbook public, it has been revealed that it is still in draft form – since being compiled in 2007. So it would appear that public officials have been using a draft document which is not yet official policy, to spend lavishly, and defy accountability for at least five years. And this in a state in which the ANC touts as one of the most advanced constitutional democracies in the world.
The voters have been repeatedly duped and have been somewhat passively accepting it much longer than five years; in fact since corruption on a massive scale by government officials suddenly started being unearthed following the Arms Deal Scandal of 1999.
But voters are notoriously stupid gullible. Take this cretin for example, commenting on the latest iteration of the Handbook saga:
He claims to know the facts – that governments pull money out of the air to fight wars, and that attacks on the ANC is a Corporate agenda. With voters like these, is it any wonder that the ANC is enjoying a corrupt hegemony that threatens the future of beautiful South Africa.
Aluta continua!
Lenny Says 
I do not propose to engage in what seems to me a vacuous and sterile debate. Only a special kind of thin-skinned, guilt ridden, fool will dispute the fact that we are still struggling to overcome the effects of more than 300 years of colonialism and Apartheid and that South Africa is a more difficult country to govern well because of it. It would similarly require a brazen denial of reality to hold that our democratically elected government should not take some responsibility for specific governance failures of the past 20 years.