Correctional Services continues to waste public money
According to reports in today's papers (see article), several Members of Parliament and a number of public officials have been using public money to stay in rented property, despite having an official residence available to them.
Two of the worst offenders are from the Department of Correctional Services, namely, the national commissioner, Xoliswa Sibeko, and the Gauteng commissioner, Thozana Mqobi-Balfour (wife of former correctional services minister Ngconde Balfour). Both are renting properties at a cost to the taxpayer of around R30 000 a month, despite having official residences (which have recently been refurnished at the respective cost of R150 000 and R50 000) available to them and which are standing empty.
No national department epitomises the ANC government's attitude to wasteful and fruitless expenditure more acutely than the Department of Correctional Services. Its administration is routinely defined by indulgence and poor judgment and it seriously needs to re-evaluate its corporate culture and values system if it is ever going to start putting service delivery ahead of personal extravagance and moderation ahead of excess.
I will this week be writing to the chairperson of the portfolio committee on correctional services, Vincent Smith, to request that the commissioner be called before the committee to explain herself and justify what, by all accounts, appears to be gross abuse of public money. I will also be submitting parliamentary questions to the minister, to determine how long the commissioner has been renting property, the cost to the public and the situation in other provinces.
Further, I shall refer the issue to my colleague Mark Steele MP, the DA representative on the Standing Committee for Public Accounts, and ask that he ensure this matter is fully interrogated by the Auditor-General, ahead of his assessment of the Department's financial administration for the past financial year.
In delivering his budget vote to Parliament, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan warned that the state had to be more disciplined in the way it manages its money. He stated: "After seven years of growing budgets and rising revenues there is a degree of fiscal looseness in the system and now is the time to tighten up on that looseness." He continued, "Money is not the problem ... it is how we spend the money. This has to improve. In several sectors, budgets have grown exponentially but outputs have not increased in tandem".
This is no way to respond to the Finance Minister's call. What makes matters worse is that, at the same time as the commissioner is living in the lap of luxury, there are thousands of hard working DSC officials who can scarcely come out on their salaries and who cannot access official accommodation.
Statement issued by James Selfe MP, Democratic Alliance shadow minister of correctional services, July 12 2009
Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter
