South Africa’s Zuma repays some state money in home improvement scandal

JOHANNESBURG,  (Reuters) – South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma has taken out a home loan to repay state money spent on non-security upgrades to his private residence, his office said on Monday, after a scandal over lavish improvements including a swimming pool and amphitheatre.

In a stinging rebuke that hit Zuma financially and politically, the Constitutional Court ordered him in March to return some of the $16 million spent on enhancing his residence at Nkandla in the KwaZulu-Natal province.