Even after retirement, ANC cadres continue to abuse taxpayer money to fund their jet-setting lifestyles
The Democratic Alliance (DA) can reveal that, between June 2013 and March 2019, the Parliament of South Africa spent over R36 million on business class domestic flight tickets for retired ministers, deputy ministers, as well as their spouses. This information has not previously been made public, and the DA only obtained it after months of cajoling Parliament into complying with a Promotion of Access to Information (PAIA) request.
It is absolutely shocking that the legislative branch of government spends millions of Rands every year to ferry around retired members of the executive and their families. This provision that Parliament must pay for the jet-setting lifestyles of former ministers – which is contained in the Ministerial Handbook – grossly undermines the separation between the legislative and executive arms of government.
It is also an obscene waste of money. Ministers are paid over R2.4 million per year, including a very generous pension. In addition to this salary and pension, the Ministerial Handbook also uses taxpayer money to provide ministers with luxurious lifestyles while they are in office, including paid accommodation, official vehicles, security upgrades, as well as domestic and international travel.
Yet this is apparently still not enough to feed the ravenous appetite of the African National Congress (ANC), who have for decades abused Parliament and taxpayers into paying for business class flight tickets for ministers, deputy ministers, and their spouses even after they retire and for the rest of their lives.
Even more shocking is that the amount of money wasted on these retired cadres has been steadily increasing since 2013, when Parliament spent R3.8 million on flights for retired ministers, deputies, and their spouses. By 2018/2019 – the first year of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s administration – this figure had tripled to R9.3 million.
The DA will leave no stone unturned in our quest to root out this obscenely wasteful expenditure that also flagrantly undermines the separation between Parliament and the executive. While Parliament has finally provided us with the overall amounts wasted on luxury flights, we are still awaiting their response to the second part of our request: the DA wants a full list of amounts, as well as the names of all former ministers, deputy ministers, and their spouses, who benefitted from the policy in the 2018/2019 financial year.
With all the information at hand, the DA will take the fight to Parliament to ensure that this provision is scrapped entirely and immediately.
With over 10 million South Africans trapped in unemployment by the ANC – and millions more at risk of joblessness and poverty as a result of the ANC lockdown crisis – it is simply unconscionable that the people of South Africa should continue paying millions for the jet-setting lifestyles of the same retired cadres who unleashed such hardship on our country.
Statement issued by Dr Leon Schreiber MP - DA Shadow Minister of Public Service and Administration, 5 July 2020
