This is our country Bangladesh. I love my country very much but sometimes I am surprised to see the work of some people in the country.

It is good to think that there are so many simple people living in our country who are not in other cobb countries. Again it seems bad that there is so much corruption in this country which is not in any other country of the world.

There are people from one class of the people who just sit with themselves. There is no one to search for others or ordinary people.

CORRUPTION remains, as ever, a central theme in South African political discourse. President Jacob Zuma often finds himself situated at the heart of the discussion.

As the president he is responsible for upholding and promoting the constitution and those values and principles that define it. But, in his personal capacity, he remains mired in a series of allegations that won’t go away, least of all the 700-odd corruption charges he faces. The result of all of this is a permanent contradiction where the ideals he espouses are constantly held up against his practical circumstance. The contradictions appear all the more stark when one looks back at some of the positions Zuma has taken earlier in his career and during the 2000s.

Here, then, are ten Jacob Zuma quotes on corruption that speak to this paradox:

1. "Government will only be satisfied once corruption has been eradicated from the public sector at all levels." His reply in the National Assembly on May 17 2000 as deputy president.

Curiously, given how eager Zuma has been recently to remind people that the legacy of apartheid is responsible for so many of our contemporary woes, he draws a distinction in his parliamentary response, saying: "We know that in the apartheid period corruption was endemic, but the people of the country knew very little about it because of the suppression of information and the almost total lack of transparency. However, that does not in any way mitigate corruption in our democratic society; it only makes the task much harder." The latter part of that sentiment seems to have been discarded more recently.

1. "… I do not belong to those politicians who make mistakes and believe that that is how politicians operate. I think that politicians ought to be exemplary in what they do. That is what the politicians should strive for, if they are not doing that. I am not among those who condemn politicians."

Again, in the National Assembly, this time on March 13 2002. Zuma was responding to questions about the moral regeneration summit, which he spearheaded as its leader at the time. Two of Zuma’s defining characteristics are evident in this quote — the ideal and the reality. Ideally, he believes politicians should be exemplary, but in reality he won’t condemn them if they stray.

1. "(Judges should convict) even if there are facts that are short."

This quote is from an interview on April 9 2002. As the head of the moral regeneration movement Zuma said some highly controversial things, including this assertion that judges should convict criminals even without sufficient evidence. One wonders how Zuma would hold up were that standard applied to him. It is, of course, a profoundly unconstitutional sentiment and anathema to the principle that one is innocent until proven guilty. Zuma himself said in 2003: "My understanding is that a person has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty." But then that was about his own predicament.

1. "They (lawyers) are paid millions by the crooks to get them out of jail and that is all they are interested in. (They are) not interested in promoting good values in society. Every criminal you see behind bars these days has a pocket copy of the constitution, he knows all his rights."

This quote is from an interview with the Saturday Star on April 6 2002. It’s a similar theme to the one above. As head of the moral regeneration movement Zuma bemoaned how criminals and lawyers alike used their constitutional rights to keep themselves out of jail. Zuma himself has never been found guilty of any crime, but, again, held to his own standard he would seem to have used every legal trick in the book to avoid his day in court and any definitive verdict on the allegations he faces.

1. "How do you stop crime? Maybe we should think about scrapping bail for specific crimes such as rape, killing, and robbery. Shouldn’t we discuss this in the process (of strengthening) the fight against crime?"

Zuma comments to a 3,000-strong audience at an African National Congress (ANC) imbizo on the University of Pretoria’s Vista Campus on May 19 2008. Perhaps the ultimate populist call of any demagogue is the call to scrap bail, a profoundly unjust idea that runs contrary to the principle of innocent until proven guilt. Zuma has made it several times. Bail can, of course, be denied, but only on the basis of the evidence presented at a bail hearing.

1. "We’re probably the first government in the world to have taken corruption so seriously."

From The Sunday Independent on April 27 2003. Out of context this quote perhaps reveals the contradiction inherent to it: has the ANC government taken the practice of corruption seriously or those attempts to curtail it? I shall let the reader arrive at his or her own conclusion.

1. "(The arms deal) is another imagined issue. It’s just a figment of the imagination, because hon members have not paid attention to what benefits have been brought by the arms deal in terms of the industry of the country. Again, they would be imagining it. I know that they have been chasing to find something. Up to this day, nobody has found anything. They’ve been chasing it in the sea, in the sky and everywhere. Nothing has been found. What is the problem?"

Zuma answers questions in the National Assembly on February 25 2004. It is one of the quintessential Zuma contradictions. In 2004 corruption in the arms deal was a "figment of the imagination". In 2012, when President Zuma launched a commission of inquiry into the self-same deal, he said: "The arms deal in this country has been an experience that we must all learn from. In future, if we were to undertake such a task we would certainly look at what happened in our experience and take the correct steps in order to eliminate some of the things that might have caused problems. There’s no doubt about it." No doubt indeed.

1. "I think it is important to say that public servants, in particular, more than anybody else, ought to be aware that they should be more upright and transparent in so far as the use of public funds is concerned."

Zuma answers questions in the National Assembly on May 17 2000. There is no end to the evidence that suggests, when it comes to the security at Zuma’s private residence in Nkandla, there was a distinct lack of people being "upright" or "transparent" about how and why the money was spent. Full disclosure has been fought every step of the way and the entire affair is marked by obfuscation and double talk.

1. "We would have a funny government if it chased rumours every day on what appeared in the newspapers."

Zuma answers questions in the National Assembly on June 8 2005. Newspapers have played a vital role in exposing corruption in SA. No doubt there has been, among more serious reporting, the odd rumour. But then so much of the system of government is ostensibly designed to listen to and respond to allegations, including the presidential hotline itself. Zuma seems to want his cake and eat it.

1. "We have set a firm foundation to fight corruption … the most important thing is that we have a system to deal with it, and who comes to the net is not the issue, it could be anyone."

From The Sunday Independent on April 27 2003. It is appropriate to close with this quote because it would seem to represent the very antithesis of those political impulses that define the criminal justice system at the moment. Not so much "anyone" as those who either would make good sacrifices — scapegoats — or those who pose some kind of political threat and need to be dealt with.

Whom the state pursues and prosecutes seems entirely to depend on their political position. Certainly one person never to have been "caught in the net", is Zuma himself