Every month in the Zuma administration to date we see revelation after revelation of how our political elite plunder the national purse as if this is their personal money and can do what they wish with it. As a result of questions that the DA posed it emerged that our Minister of Transport, Sbu Ndebele, emerged as one of the cabinet’s high-rolling and high-living ministers. He regularly stays in four- and five-star hotels. These fancy hotels include the Cullinan Hotel in Cape Town, the Michelangelo Towers, the Cape Grace and the Westin Grand.
Since being elected to office to July 2011 the Minister spent 346 nights in luxurious hotels. That’s just 19 days short of living in hotels for an entire year! Despite a global economic crises and a call by the Minister of Finance, Pravin Gordhan, for Ministries to constrain themselves and tighten their belts, it appears that this call has simply been ignored!
In fact it gets worse; Ndebele’s spokespeople even justify this expenditure as being within the prescribed rules and in compliance with the ministerial handbook. This being an unacceptable justification; if the ministerial handbook allows this then amend the handbook!
Apparently the Transport Ministry claimed that newly appointed ministers and their deputies were “forced” to stay in hotel accommodation in Cape Town and Pretoria whilst the Department of Public Works procured and allocated official accommodation for members of the executive. Why then was this not all done and prepared before-hand – before these politicians came into office? Had this preliminary work all been done by the time ministers and deputy ministers had been sworn in it would’ve meant that billions of rands of our money would’ve been saved.
I challenge all members of the executive to make a new year’s resolution; to stay in the most reasonably priced hotels when absolutely necessary. I won’t hold my breath.
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