They may seem as strange bed-fellows but both the Cosatu Secretary-General and the Democratic Alliance leader have come out in unison to strongly condemn the extravagant, exorbitant and irresponsible spending on new-flashy motor vehicles by the newly-elected South African government ministers of late.
Zwelinzima Vavi has described the rule in the Minister's Handbook which allows ministers to purchase cars up to 70% of their annual salaries as "immoral and wrong".
On the same vein, Helen Zille has pledged unstinting and overwhelming support to the open letter written by the DA's Member of Parliament Anchen Dreger and addressed to the Director-General in the Presidency Vusi Mavimbela whereby he's demanding that certain anmendments were made to the minister's handbook.
"We can not, in the midst of the current economic crisis, allow theduly-elected public representatives to spend government resources harphazardly.
The DA is proposing a wide range of cost-cutting measures for the executive, including doing away with free trips on the luxurious Blue Train, removing the right to the state-sponsored domestic work and also calls for the reasonable state-car allowance to a meagre R660 000,00" says Zille.
Speaking in Cape Town over the weekend, Zille, stressed that economic times were tough and called members of the executive, like everyone else, should tighten their belts and demonstrate some frugality.
And the SA's umbrella labour federation boss could not hide their displeasure at what the government ministers were seen to be doing at the time when ordinary workers, in particular, the textile manufacuring sector was shedding thousands of employment employment opportunities and the almost the entire local government tier was brought at a standstill this week as employees demand a 15% pay rise.
"Cosatu won't be able to convince workers that the Cde JZ administration was still new in governance when they see expensive cars worth millions being bought by the ministers, while their own grievances remainunattended" noted Vavi.
A Sunday major newspaper has reported what can be construe as condonation of minister's spending when it commended Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan for being modest on the two official cars he has been allowed to purchase.
The Sunday Times reported that Gordhan's Lexus GS 300 SE for Gauteng and Audi A6 for Cape Town cost a combined R 1191 612,66.
The newspaper said this figure 'was less than half of the extravagant R2,4 million Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda spent on his two BMW's, plus the close to R150 000 worth of extras.
However, genteel murmurs have emerged from the broader liberation movement activists who argue that as a senior Tripartite Alliance leader Vavi should have utilised the 'local, internal remedies' and voiced his serious reservations at branch level ratheer thaan rush to the media networks with the likes of opposition politics.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
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