Amidst the economic challenges surrounding South Africa presided upon by Jacob Zuma, a government official, Collins Letsoalo, who granted himself a 350% pay rise, has been sacked.

According to Ceoafrica, he was supposed to be "Mr Fix-it", brought in to clean up corruption and waste at South Africa’s troubled railways authority.

But soon after his arrival last year at the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa, Mr Letsoalo allegedly sought a pay rise of 350%, taking his annual salary to some $450,000 (£360,000).

However, when a newspaper published details of what it said was an unauthorised salary increase, Mr Letsoala insisted he had done nothing wrong, but the rail agency board has now decided otherwise which led to unanimous voting to remove him from the job.

To some, this is a scandal about the culture of entitlement and corruption pervading the upper levels of the South African state, which is a rare example of someone actually being found out, and punished.

But Mr Letsoalo is right to point out that executives running the country’s other struggling state-owned enterprises all earn similarly huge salaries.