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President Zuma's legal fees have inexplicably increased from R5 million to R9.6 million, but the Presidency does not seem to think that this needs to be explained to anyone - not to Scopa and certainly not the South African public.

A week ago, when Chief Operations Officer in the Presidency, Jessie Duarte, appeared before Scopa, she declared that the amount spent on President Zuma's legal fees was R5 million. Either she was not aware that the amount was in fact R9.6 million, which says a lot about her knowledge of what goes on in the Presidency, or she deliberately decreased the amount by nearly 50%, which raises questions of corruption and gross misrepresentation. Either way, this is hugely problematic.

Scopa Chairman Themba Godi had set a deadline of 30 March 2010 for the Presidency to submit a detailed breakdown of all President Zuma's legal bills, so as to understand where this sudden increase had come from. The Presidency has missed this deadline, and had on Wednesday, submitted incomplete information, in the form of a lump-sum, while Scopa had specifically asked for a detailed breakdown of every invoice relating to President Zuma's legal bills. Once again, the Presidency seems to regard itself as being above the law.

This is a clear indication that the Presidency had not complied with Scopa's request, yet Themba Godi is waiting on further communication from the Presidency, before he determines whether or not they had fully complied, and had in fact been honest to his committee. How many more flimsy excuses is Scopa going to accept before taking action? There is clearly one set of rules for the politically connected elite, and another for the rest.

This is an indictment of Scopa, as they are tasked with holding the Executive to account, and have failed dismally at this task.