The Congress of the People (COPE) has described Treasury’s cost estimate that President Jacob Zuma must pay for non-security upgrades to his Nkandla homestead as an insult to taxpayers. “When we consider that on top of the R240-million spent on the Nkandla estate‚ there were millions more spent by the public protector‚ the SIU‚ the police and Parliament to investigate the Nkandla daylight robbery. Hiring expensive lawyers saw many more millions wasted‚” Cope said in a statement. Treasury on Monday submitted its report to the Constitutional Court on the costs that Zuma was personally liable for regarding the non-security upgrades at Nkandla.The report showed that the Zuma is only liable for 87.94% of the upgrades which amount to about R7.8-million. COPE described the amount of money Zuma had to pay as “laughable”.“Never in the history of South Africa has one man directly cost the country so much with no benefits whatsoever to the people of our country. One way or the other‚ more than R300-million of taxpayers’ money was squandered on Nkandla. Zuma must certainly be asked to pay much more than the laughable amount of R7.8 million‚” the party added. The court had instructed the National Treasury to determine a reasonable percentage of the costs of non-security upgrades to Nkandla which ought to be paid personally by the president.Non-security upgrades included the visitors’ centre‚ the amphitheatre‚ the cattle kraal‚ the chicken run and the swimming pool...