If Ministers don't pay back the money, Patricia 'Do Little' must put a generator in every house in the country

20 July 2022

Note to Editors: Please find attached soundbite by Samantha Graham-Maré MP.

Yesterday the DA called on Public Works and Infrastructure Minister, Patricia de Lille, to ensure that her colleagues in the ANC who have received generators from her Department (DPWI) pay back the money.

If Minister De Lille does not ensure that the R2.6 million that was spent on generators and fuel for various Ministers since 2021 is paid back by the end of this month, we call on her to provide each and every household in the country with a generator and fuel.

It will only be fair that this much-needed support to keep the lights on is also offered to ordinary South Africans, and not just to fat-cat ANC ministers.

We will also call on the parliamentary portfolio committee on public works and infrastructure to call Minister De Lille to appear so she can account for this travesty.

Since her appointment, Minister ‘Do Little’ has done nothing but squander taxpayers’ money – from wasting R37 million on the Beitbridge ‘washing line’ where she allegedly had a hand in the procurement irregularities that characterised the project; her mismanagement of Covid-19 quarantine sites at the start of the pandemic; her alleged interference in a number of DPWI projects; her alleged irregular awarding of two Northern Cape farms; refusing to release underutilised and unused government land to accommodate low-income housing; multitudes of problems regarding South African Police Service (SAPS) facilities that De Lille’s Department seems unable or unwilling to solve; and the historic National Assembly that continues to crumble after extensive fire and water damage in January 2022.

The DA has also written to the office of the Public Protector to request an urgent investigation into Minister ‘Do Little’s’ contravention of subsections 3 and 5 of the Guide for Members of the Executive when her Department supplied generators and fuel for Ministers to escape the country’s rolling blackouts.

Minister De Lille’s head should have rolled a long time ago. Her years as Minister have been defined by ineptitude, allegations of political interference and a callous disregard for ordinary South Africans. Calling for President Cyril Ramaphosa’s intervention is like waiting for a rainstorm in the desert – useless and disappointing. We hope the committee and the Public Protector would prove to have actual bite behind their bark.

Issued by Samantha Graham-Maré, DA Shadow Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure, 20 July 2022