World Cup tickets: DA calls on Finance Minister to bring Gauteng MEC into line
Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan needs to urgently bring Gauteng MEC for Local Government Kgaogelo Lekgoro into line with his directive on municipal purchases of World Cup tickets.
Despite a National Treasury circular to municipalities that makes it clear that spending municipal funds on tickets constitutes irregular, wasteful and fruitless expenditure in terms of legislation, the MEC has issued his own circular to Gauteng municipalities with instructions on how to circumvent the Finance Minister's instruction that municipalities should not buy World Cup tickets.
Minister Gordhan must now urgently intervene to prevent Mr. Lekgoro from openly flouting his directive.
Mr Lekgoro states in his correspondence that municipalities ought to be purchasing tickets for mayors and municipal managers, and should be justifying this on the basis that attendance at these games could be deemed a "marketing strategy for purposes of promoting the work of the municipality."
He goes on to say that: "It is recommended... that all Gauteng chosen representatives attend the opening and closing matches" and that "travel to other provinces has to be justified on the partnership building basis."