DIRCO’s refusal to reduce budget is an affront to jobseekers

21 January 2016

The DA is gravely concerned about the Department of International Relations and Cooperation’s (DIRCO), statement yesterday saying “there are no plans to cut costs” in all of  SA’s foreign missions and embassies – even in the non-trade specific countries.

The DA urges, DIRCO Minister, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, to review the strategic importance of non-trade specific missions and to urgently make recommendations to Treasury for the budget to be appropriately reduced.

At a time when unemployment is at its zenith, DIRCO should be reducing spending at non-strategic foreign missions that do not bolster economic trade that will result in more jobs being created.

Even more worrying is that DIRCO received an additional R700-million for the 2015/2016 financial year to offset fluctuations in foreign exchange spending. Surely, Treasury should be discouraging DIRCO from more expenditure, disbursing an additional R700-million to help with spending more in dollars is only encouraging non-strategic and fruitless spending, at the cost of the taxpayer.

It is baffling that when the fiscus is being battered from all angles by calls for free education, more social welfare and subsidized health care, the government is more concerned about maintaining ambassadorial expenditures in foreign missions. 

The DA will present recommendations to Minister Nkoana-Mashabana, on which missions are economically expedient for job creation in South Africa. For example our embassy in Bamako, Mali which costs about R15 million a year to support, which is notably a massive 12% of the value of trade between South Africa and Mali, which is approximately R185 million. 

In stark contrast, our embassy in Abudja, Nigeria costs the tax payer, R42 million - more than three times as much as the Bamako mission. Yet this amount is less than 0.1 of a percentile point of the value of trade between our two nations, which amounts to R42.6 billion. The returns on investment are thus significantly different, while the quantum of the initial investment is not. 

Of course value of trade is not our only consideration. We have strategic objectives which cannot be measured in Rands – our missions to the United Nations and to the African Union among others, as well as strengthening our relations with other African nations. 

The DA will remain steadfast in holding the Executive accountable for negligent spending of tax-payer’s money. The DA will fight for to ensure that job creation remains a priority in all of South Africa’s foreign missions.

Issued by Stevens Mokgalapa, DA Shadow Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, 21 January 2016