Every Rand Counts: DA launches campaign for good government

Today, we are launching our Every Rand Counts campaign.

This is a campaign that speaks to the heart of good government. Good government in democratic societies is about responsible and effective management of the public's resources for the public's use. It is exercising a custodial role for money that is intended to help people. It is ultimately about serving the people. This campaign monitors where that trust has been violated in South Africa by various ANC governments during the era of the Zuma administration.

Our calculations reveal nearly R4 billion misspent on self-indulgent purchases by government members who have chosen to serve themselves rather than the people.

Our campaign is being launched in Parliament today, and online at at www.everyrandcounts.org. This website gives an up-to-date rendering of the Zuma administration's wasteful expenditure. It also shows how many RDP houses are foregone by every item of waste, depicting the costs of this wastage in more tangible terms.

In addition, we've launched a Facebook-based petition. In its first few hours since going live, the petition has already notched up over 700 signatures. We will send the final petition to President Zuma, to show him how important proper financial management is to South Africans. DA leader Helen Zille this morning signed the petition. The petition has also been signed by ID president Patricia de Lille, DA parliamentary leader Athol Trollip and DA chairperson Dr Wilmot James.

Where the wasted Rands went

The Every Rand Counts campaign currently monitors seven key categories of wasteful and fruitless expenditure incurred under the Zuma administration. They are listed here, along with the amounts incurred:

1. Advertising - wasteful marketing, e-marketing and self-congratulatory advertising - R19 570 000
2. Hotelgate - unnecessary property rentals, hotel stays and property renovations - R166 975 000
3. Cargate - wasteful expenditure on luxury vehicles for politicians - R69 735 000
4. Partygate - wasteful expenditure on parties, conferences and other events - R160 870 000
5. Ticketgate - wasteful expenditure on tickets to sports events and other entertainment - R196 975 000
6. Audited waste - items of wasteful expenditure appearing in financial audits - R351 300 000
7. Other waste - such as Cuban debt-forgiveness and money to Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe - R2 863 385 000

Total: R3 828 810 000

This R3.8 billion, which was uselessly frittered away, could have paid for:

• 70,903 RDP houses (at R54,000 each)
• 22,522 teacher's salaries for one year (at R170,000 per annum)
• 382 new rural clinics (at R10 million each)
• 95 new schools (at R40 million each)
• 7 new 280-bed hospitals (at R500 million each)

Recent items added to the monitor include:

• R30 million on housing refurbishments for President Zuma's various residences
• R83 million in various state sponsorships of the National Youth Development Agency's ‘Anti-Imperialism' Conference
• R1 billion in debt relief for Cuba
• Over R700 million in unexplained aid to Zimbabwe and Guinea Conakry
• Almost R200 million on World Cup tickets for various national government departments and entities

A comprehensive list of wasteful expenditure items is included on the Every Rand Counts website.

The Campaign

Far from heeding Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan's call to government departments, back in 2009, to be more careful in the way they spend public money and his more recent warnings that government departments refrain from spending lavishly on World Cup tickets, wasteful and fruitless spending by state departments and entities has continued unabated. This means that less money is available for critical social services that benefit the poor, such as primary healthcare, education and housing. In addition, many of the municipalities and state-owned entities that spent lavishly on unnecessary luxuries are themselves in dire financial straits.

The Every Rand Counts campaign illustrates a growing trend amongst politicians of exploiting public office for their own ends. This sort of behaviour does not help our country, especially in a time of economic recession and growing austerity measures internationally. It does not help our country when at least a quarter of our working-age population is unable to find a job. It does not help our country when the cycle of poverty has meant that the only income many South Africans can expect is a social grant from the national government.

It is arrogant and anti-poor. Today, we launch this campaign, updating similar efforts in the past. We will continue to add to our waste monitor as more instances arise, bringing home to people and indeed those responsible just how much money is being wasted instead of addressing far more pressing social needs.

We are saying to President Zuma that, in a country where one in three of the economically active population is unemployed, and where service delivery breakdowns occur on a daily basis, we cannot continue to waste billions of rands on luxury cars, prolonged stays in five-star hotels, tickets to sporting events, self-congratulatory advertising, and lavish parties. We are launching a campaign that aims to mobilise South Africans behind our effort to make the ANC government accountable for its spending of public funds.

What we are doing differently

Mindful of the tendency for governments to engage in reckless wasteful expenditure, DA governments across municipalities have implemented austerity measures that not only restrict self-indulgent spending but streamline government finances to ensure effective financial management.

For instance, when the DA assumed office in the Western Cape in 2009, a decision was taken by the provincial cabinet to cease unnecessary spending on motor vehicles. Controversially, national cabinet members had spent millions of rands on new cars for themselves when assuming office in 2009, ignoring the fact that such spending was both unnecessary and unethical and hiding behind the fact that their purchases were formally protected by the Executive Ethics Handbook.

The DA-run Western Cape decided that no new cars would be bought by provincial DA ministers if there were already serviceable cars in the government garage. Since then, cars have only been replaced if there has been an absolute need for such replacement and not to satisfy the preferences of individual cabinet ministers.

We have attempted to inculcate this spirit of responsible spending throughout all our governments and have made it the core tenet of our government. The Every Rand Counts campaign points to numerous examples of irregular and wasteful spending by ANC governments due to corrupt tender processes; contracts awarded on the basis of political connections rather than suitability for the job.

Upon assuming the government of the City of Cape Town in a DA-led coalition in 2006, the DA immediately reformed the city's tender processes. Today, any contract for city business over the value of R2000 is publicly advertised online where bidders register their competition for the contracts and the process is completely open to public scrutiny.

Furthermore, the city's Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) is now chaired by a member from an opposition party thus ensuring full disclosure and scrutiny.

Our austerity measures and focus on managing clean finances, whereby public money is put to work for the people, has paid dividends. This year, the City of Cape Town received its fourth unqualified audit in a row under DA administration. At the end of last year, the Auditor-General's report showed that the Western Cape was the only province in South Africa to receive unqualified audits for all of its departments, a first in South Africa's democratic history, a true victory for the austerity measures implemented by the DA in 2009.

Governments should always act as responsible custodians of public money to ensure that the public's money works for them and does not serve the personal indulgences of government members. This involves a commitment from governments on numerous levels. The first is to actively restrict excessive spending, cutting down on waste and unnecessary expenses. The second, much harder part is to infuse all aspects of government with an ethos of responsible financial management, ensuring that budgets are spent on the things for which they were allocated.

To date, ANC governments have not been living up to these requirements and the result is the wasting of nearly R4 billion of public money that could have been used for much greater needs, the needs of the South African people.

We are calling on South Africans to say, with one voice, that enough is enough - and that it is time to usher in a new era of financial responsibility and good government.

Statement issued by Lindiwe Mazibuko, Democratic Alliance national spokesperson, February 21 2011

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