Minister Xingwana must explain her Department's skewed spending priorities

Minister of Women, Children and People with Disabilities, Lulu Xingwana, must explain how she can justify her Department's skewed spending priorities.

For the 2012/13 financial year, Minister Xingwana's Department has been allocated a total budget of R172.2 million; a R29.1 million increase on last year's budget of R143.1 million and R110.3 million more than the R61.9 million the Department received when it was established in 2009.

However, vulnerable South Africans are unlikely to benefit from her Department's significantly increased budget.

Instead, the Department's travel and subsistence budget, which has grown to R25 million, appears to have been the real winner. This figure represents more than 14% of the Department's total budget.

Not even the Department of International Relations and Co-operation (DIRCO), whose mandate requires extensive travel, could come close to this kind of expenditure in terms of percentage of budget allocated to travel and subsistence.

DIRCO's travel and subsistence allocation of R269.6 million, which represents 5% of its R5 116.6 million budget, appears almost restrained in comparison.

In contrast to its R25 million travel and subsistence budget, Minister Xingwana's Department has allocated just R13.5 million to its "Children's Rights and Responsibilities" programme, and R15.4 million to its "Rights of People with Disabilities" programme.

Minister Xingwana's Department has a history of diverting resources that should be used to uplift vulnerable South Africans to travelling the world to attend expensive junkets.

The Department's 2010/11 annual report revealed that R16 million was spent on travel in the 2010/11 financial year.

Of this, R6.8 million was spent on a delegation of 49 officials for a trip to New York.

With her state-funded trips, and disregard for the needs of the poor and vulnerable, Minister Xingwana has become the Marie Antoinette of the Union Buildings.

I will today submit a series of parliamentary questions asking the Minister to justify her Department's questionable spending priorities.

I want to know exactly what the Minister plans to spend her Department's multimillion-rand travel and subsistence budget on, and how this will help to uplift vulnerable South Africans.

I also want to know how the Minister justifies the discrepancy between the amount allocated to travel and subsistence, and the funds allocated to the Department's disability and children's rights programmes..

It is time for the Minister to explain to Parliament and the vulnerable groups whose interests her Department is supposed to represent, when she is going to stop jetsetting and start delivering.

Statement issued by Helen Lamoela MP, DA Shadow Minister of Women, Children and People with Disabilities, February 27 2012

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