Six-year delay for lifestyle audits show Ramaphosa’s failure to tackle cabinet corruption

5 September 2023

It is the ultimate indictment on Cyril Ramaphosa’s Presidency that nearly six years since he promised to conduct lifestyle audits on Members of the National Executive, as announced in his 2018 State of the Nation (SONA) reply, this process is still shockingly incomplete and inconclusive.

As South Africa nears the end of its Sixth Parliament, citizens still do not know how many of their ministers are ANC crooks.

This revelation, admitted by President Ramaphosa in response to my parliamentary question today, is even more damning when one considers the numerous media exposés and investigations which have found evidence that his very own Deputy President Paul Mashatile, among others, lives a life of opulence well beyond his means and bankrolled by those implicated in State Capture.

The DA will continue to submit written questions to the President to track the process of lifestyle audits for the Executive so that South Africans can know once and for all the extent of ANC corruption at the head of our government.

We deserve to know which Ministers are corrupt and belong in jail.

This admittance demonstrates that President Ramaphosa’s promise to clean up and clean out the corrupt government of the ANC rings hollow, and that corruption and state capture have not ceased, but merely been extended, under his term of office.

Indeed, President Ramaphosa is no different to his predecessor, Jacob Zuma.

Democratic Alliance (DA) Western Cape Premier, Alan Winde, initiated and concluded thorough and comprehensive lifestyle audits of all members of his provincial executive, which was at all times made transparent and accessible to the public, within six months of promising them.

It is simply unacceptable that the same process cannot, or perhaps will not, be replicated by an ANC President in the National Executive. How many more ANC skeletons is President Ramaphosa trying to hide?

It is equally unacceptable that President Ramaphosa can blame the delay in this process on a change of service providers.

South Africans are tired of the excuses made to allow impunity to reign supreme under this government.

South Africans are tired of getting poorer, hungrier, and more desperate while ANC Ministers live lives of luxury that continue to go unchecked.

If South Africans want a government that is not corrupt, that spends money on the people and not the politicians, then they must register to vote the ANC out.

There will be no New Dawn for South Africa until dusk reaches the ANC.

Issued by John Steenhuisen, Leader of the Democratic Alliance, 5 September 2023