南非非洲人国民议会成员近日提议减少对总统祖玛多名妻子的财政支持，称国家只有义务帮助总统供养第一位妻子，其他几位妻子的生活用度应由总统本人负担。因南非国民议会在缩小贫富差距方面举措不力，引得国民不满情绪日益高涨，祖玛所在的政党成员才会有此提议。祖玛现年70岁，有过六次婚姻，现有四名妻子和20个孩子。他在2009到2010年度的“配偶补助”金额为120万英镑（约合190万美元），主要涵盖他四名妻子的个人助理、电话、笔记本电脑、打印机，以及国内外出行的交通和住宿花费。如若该提议得以通过，祖玛的“配偶补助”金额将大幅缩减。

Jacob Zuma, South Africa's polygamous president, faces losing £1.2 million ($1.9 million) budgetary support for his four wives after African National Congress (ANC) members said taxpayers should only have to pay for one.

Jacob Zuma, South Africa's polygamous president, faces losing £1.2 million ($1.9 million) budgetary support for his four wives after African National Congress (ANC) members said taxpayers should only have to pay for one.

Mr Zuma, 70, and his family currently benefit from a spousal support allowance that is almost double that of his predecessors. His wives take turns to travel with him and otherwise divide their time between individual, luxury thatched huts in his rural homestead and homes in South Africa's cities.

But amid growing anger about the ANC's failure to narrow a gaping wealth divide between rich and poor, members of the president's own party have suggested that he should be paying more for his lifestyle choice.

Activists gathering for a provincial meeting in the Eastern Cape have backed a proposal, for just the first of Mr Zuma's wives to be supported by the state, to be put to the party's national policy conference in Johannesburg next week.

"As taxpayers, we cannot afford to continue financing so many wives," a member of the party's economic transformation committee told East London's Daily Dispatch newspaper. "Only wife number one should get benefits from the state. Our understanding is that when you decide to have more than one wife, you are able to support the others. Then deal with it."

Mr Zuma has been married six times and has four current wives and an estimated 20 children.

His latest marriage, in April this year, was to Gloria Bongekile Ngema in a traditional ceremony in his home village of Nkandla. The union once again stirred up debate about the Zulu president's polygamy.

The presidential budget for "spousal support" was £1.2m in 2009/10, almost double the cost during Thabo Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe's terms in office.

Mac Maharaj, Mr Zuma's spokesman, has insisted that it was "grossly incorrect" to suggest that taxpayers paid for the upkeep of his wives.

"The spouses pay their own living or household expenses, be it food, mortgages, lights, water and so forth," he said.

A parliamentary answer in 2010 revealed that the budget is spent on personal staff for the wives, including a secretary and researcher, phones, laptops and printers, domestic air travel and accommodation on non-presidential business and international travel and expenses on presidential business.

It is understood that the president's wives are entitled to medical aid and security, and that his children's domestic travel is funded by the presidential office.

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(Agencies)

（中国日报网英语点津 Helen 编辑）