A billion ways the ANC is wasting public funds

With the inclusion of some new information, the Democratic Alliance's Wasteful Expenditure Monitor, which has been tracking items of fruitless and wasteful expenditure by the ANC administration since July last year, has now passed the R1-billion mark.

The key figures are as follows:

· Cargate: Our Wasteful Expenditure Monitor has now tracked R47.4-million wasted on new luxury vehicles that have been bought by the ANC.

·  Hotelgate: A total of R4.5-million has been spent on luxury hotel stays and other property-related expense scandals. This includes the R800,000 spending spree by Police Commissioner Nathi Mthethwa at a series of luxury hotels.

·  Partygate: A total of R203-million has been wasted on various parties, banquets, conferences and other events, including the R10.6-million spent by KwaZulu-Natal premier Zweli Mkhize on an inauguration party, the R7-million spent by the Free State provincial government on a party coinciding with the opening of their legislature, the estimated R40-million spent on the National Police Day, the R42-million spent by the Department of Arts and Culture on a series of gala dinners and music concerts, and the R75.7-million wasted by the Department of Transport on four conferences.

·  Adveritising: A total of R16.5-million has been spent on wasteful marketing, e-marketing and self-congratulatory advertising, including approximately R15-million spent by Durban City Council on two websites.

·  Other spending: A total of R732.9-million on all other items of wasteful and fruitless expenditure, including the R22.5-million Sarafina-style theatre production paid for by the Human Settlements department, and the R117.5-million that it cost the Gauteng provincial government to cancel their motorsport contract.

The total wasteful expenditure by the ANC as recorded in our monitor now stands at R1,004,000,000.

This equates to just under 19,000 RDP houses, or enough funds to pay the annual salaries of another 8000 teachers.

The Rationale behind the Wasteful Expenditure Monitor:

In delivering his 2009 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".

The DA agrees wholeheartedly with Minister Gordhan's sentiments, and hoped to see this translate into action in the Zuma administration. It failed to do so. Indeed, instead what transpired was a stream of examples of fruitless and wasteful expenditure, more often than not, to indulge the executive's personal tastes.

As part of its oversight role, as the official opposition, the Democratic Alliance thus decided to created a Wasteful Expenditure Monitor, to track the ANC government's excessive expenditure. We have done this to show that, very often, the needs of the ANC elite are put before the needs of ordinary South Africans. We believe that by keeping a record of this expenditure, we can help to hold elected representatives to account, and assess the impact that wasteful expenditure has on the government's ability to deliver services as a whole.

How the Wasteful Expenditure Monitor has worked:

Almost all items of wasteful expenditure tracked in our monitor have occurred during the Zuma administration's term in office, though, as a rule, we have included all items of ANC wasteful expenditure that have emerged for the first time since the monitor was launched on July 26th. This means that, over the last 255 days, R1-billion in wasteful ANC expenditure has been exposed to light, the majority of which has been the result of rampant overspending by the Zuma administration on cars, hotels and other luxuries.

The expenditure that we include in this monitor is only money that can be without a doubt considered wasteful squandering of public funds - be it on unnecessary glitz and partying, or on clear-cut and proven negligence or corruption.

We have not, for example, included the millions involved in Julius Malema's contracts with the Limpopo provincial government, because no formal investigation has taken place into them, and thus there is no official verdict on the allegations that have been made. The claims may appear weighty, and the fact that no proper action has been taken may be a consequence of the ANC's disinterest in upholding the rule of law, but we have attempted to uphold a strict test: that if questions remain about the possible waste, we have generally not included it.

This also means that R1-billion is, in all likelihood, a highly conservative estimate of the ANC's wasteful expenditure.

In judging possible examples of wasteful expenditure we have also differentiated between mere difference of opinion in policy matters, and clear-cut instances of waste, based not on policy but on personal indulgence, corruption, cronyism or negligence. So, for instance, we have not included the several hundred million rand of expenditure associated with the creation of several new departments by President Zuma, but we have included the array of luxury vehicles purchased by his administration. The former is a policy difference that has resulted in expenditure that we consider unnecessary; the latter, we believe, is utterly clear-cut personal indulgence.

In sum, this means that what we present here is only a small fraction of what actually goes to waste, in a multitude of less obvious and provable ways, in government structures at all levels every single day.

The ANC's response:

There have been a range of counterproductive responses from the ANC government on accusations about excessive expenditure.

Public works minister Geoff Doidge, for instance, tried to claim that ministers needed "a conducive environment for them to be able to do their work", and that luxury cars were simply tools of the trade. He also used the excuse that the purchases were "not outside of policy and regulations", as did several other ministers.

There has also been a great deal of obfuscation, and opposition to efforts to expose wasteful and fruitless expenditure. The national Police Minister, for instance, simply refused to answer questions about national police day on the pointless excuse that it was "held every year".

The only member of government who has come anywhere close to admitting an error was Planning Commission Minister in the Presidency, Trevor Manuel, who conceded last year that buying a R1,2-million BMW for his official use was not well-advised.

However, it is notable that, despite the public outcry from many individuals and organisations across the country, neither Manuel, nor anyone else in the Cabinet, has returned their expensive cars.

The scandal over cars did eventually compel the ANC government to take some action, resulting in the appointment of a task team to "look at government expenditure in the context of the economic meltdown". This task team was appointed last July.

Almost a year has now past, and the task team has yet to produce a final report.

This is despite the fact that, when asked in November last year about a deadline for the production of the report, Minister of Public Service and Administration, Richard Baloyi, was quoted as saying "It will have to be soon".

What lies behind this frivolous expenditure is an attitude by a significant proportion of ANC government officials, including many of those in our Cabinet, that money is simply there to spend. There appears to be a view that the government does not need to account for this money to the people who earned it, or to explain why it is more productive to spend money on bling than on education and job creation.

What the DA is doing:

The understanding that every ordinary South African has of how difficult it is to earn money and pay for even the essentials of daily life is completely lacking.

It is hardly surprising that, when communities see politicians gliding by in BMWs with tinted windows and a blue light accompaniment, that they become resentful about the squalid conditions in which they live, and that they pour out into the streets to protest.

If South Africa is to become the healthy democracy, then we need to stop this attitude, and we need to make our politicians realise the value of the money they spend so freely.

The DA is helping to do this. 

We have submitted our own proposals to the Director-General in the President's Office, Mr Vusi Mavimbela, asking for certain amendments to be made to the Ministerial Handbook to reflect a better understanding of South Africa's reality.

We will also shortly be introducing changes to the handbook which will apply to all DA MECs in the Western Cape and, by a unanimous cabinet decision, we have halted all purchases of new cars by members of the provincial Cabinet.

We will also continue to use the parliamentary mechanisms available to us, together with our Wasteful Expenditure Monitor, to expose and track the ANC government's fruitless expenditure, and thus help to hold our elected representatives to account.

South Africa is a middle income country with one of the highest rates of inequality in the world. In such circumstances the willingness to justify million rand plus cars for Cabinet members indicates an attitude of utter contempt for all other South Africans. Once again, we ask President Jacob Zuma to speak up against this attitude, to speed up the process of reviewing the ministerial handbook, and to take this opportunity to define his government by its empathy, not its greed.

This statement accompanied a press conference held in Parliament today. A copy of the document associated with that press conference, which includes a full list of the wasteful and fruitless expenditure recorded since July 2009, is available from the DA Media Centre.

Statement issued by Lindiwe Mazibuko, MP, Democratic Alliance national spokesperson, April 8 2010

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