President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa has ended the contentious benefit of providing free energy and water to the houses of cabinet ministers and their deputies.
The benefits were met with widespread criticism for being inconsiderate of the everyday power outages and steadily increasing cost of life that ordinary South Africans are experiencing.
During a press briefing on Monday evening, a spokesman for the president said the president “acknowledges and appreciates the public sentiments on the matter”.
Ministerial benefits will be “aligned to the realities that many South Africans face,” presidential spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said.
He said that there was no sinister purpose behind the bonuses previously enjoyed by the ministers.
The state news agency quotes him as saying, “The intention was to try and find some form of balance between what ministers could afford versus some of the costs that they have,”