Cape Town — Newly-elected Minister in the Presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshaveni, said the cost of the new cabinet is part of the electoral outcomes of the Government of National Unity (GNU).
During a media briefing, Ntshaveni blamed the electorate for the inflation in cabinet expenses potentially coming to more than R1 billion for the seventh administration. She said the GNU has to deal with the outcomes, and this is now the “new normal”, TimesLIVE reported.
“If government work has to be done, government work has to be done. The electorate chose an outcome that landed us in a government of national unity (GNU) and there is a need for inclusivity, so the electorate will also have to accept the responsibility that what they gave us, for us to make lemonades out of lemons, there is a cost to it and that cost will have to be carried. It’s a new normal,” she said.
She said that there is a tendency to over-inflate the amounts in cabinet expenditures, and revealed that the sixth administration cost a little more than R1 billion to move the ministers, deputy ministers, and directors-general to attend parliament and portfolio committees in Cape Town.
MINISTER KHUMBUDZO NTSHAVHENI BRIEFS MEDIA ON THE GOVERNMENT OF NATIONAL UNIT https://t.co/ypK1PMH9ai
— Newzroom Afrika (@Newzroom405) July 4, 2024
She said that, inevitably, there are costs to the electoral outcome. When South Africans head to vote in 2026 for the local elections and 2029 for the national and provincial elections, they can then decide whether they want an outright winner, or continue with the GNU.
According to IOL, Ntshaveni said there would be an extra burden on the taxpayers to “foot the bill” of the bloated cabinet. She reiterated that Ramaphosa could not reduce the size of the cabinet as he had to accommodate all the parties in the GNU.
“As the president indicated he had wanted to reduce the number of portfolios, but when his political party did not get an outright majority and had to work with everybody else, he had to ensure everybody has to be included because it can be a government of national unity which is not inclusive of other parties to the statement of intent. So there is a cost to the electoral outcome,” she said.
ActionSA President, Herman Mashaba said Ramaphosa’s Cabinet would collectively cost more than R1 billion annually in benefits and perks, with R183 million allocated to salaries of ministers and deputy ministers alone.
He said that among other perks afforded to Cabinet ministers, taxpayers can expect annually to cover R2.68m in salaries for each minister and R2.2m for each deputy minister. On top of this, taxpayers will cover over R500m for VIP protection and security and over R390m for support staffing.
“These staggering figures do not even account for the additional costs associated with luxury residences afforded to ministers and deputy ministers,” Mashaba said.
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Compiled by Matthew Petersen
