Cabinet’s Covid cars
Ministers splurge R19m on ‘flashy new wheels’ amid poverty and lockdowns
● Cabinet ministers bought 24 cars at a combined value of R19m between 2019 and 2021 when the economy was depressed, tax revenue was shrinking and South Africans were losing their jobs and businesses to Covid lockdowns.
However, unlike in the past when ministers would buy cars worth R1m and more, they mostly stuck to purchasing vehicles within the R800,000 threshold set by Treasury regulations and the ministerial handbook.
From replies to parliamentary questions posed by the DA to various departments, it emerged that the government had splurged on 24 luxury vehicles for 17 ministers and deputy ministers.
The DA spokesperson for public service & administration, Leon Schreiber, slammed members of the executive for going on a carshopping spree while “hunger and hardship exploded all around them”.
In 2019, before the ministerial handbook was amended to introduce a R700,000 cap on ministerial vehicles — which was later increased to R800,000 by a Treasury directive
— the then human settlements minister Nomaindia Mfeketo (now ambassador to the US) purchased a taxpayer-funded Audi S8 for R1,560,602.80.
In the same month her then deputy Zoe Kota-Fredericks got a similar model, also for R1.5m. The two cars were the last vehicles costing more than R1m to be bought for members of the executive.
On March 24 2020, two days before SA went into hard lockdown, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the minister of co-operative governance & traditional affairs, got a new Volvo XC60 at a cost of R806,699.96.
Her spokesperson, Mlungisi Mtshali, told the Sunday Times the department made an application to the Treasury for permission to purchase the vehicle.
“We did submit a request to the minister of Treasury at that time and the approval was granted,” said Mtshali.
He said the car did not have any extras. “We made the request based on the type of travel that she does to municipalities. You will find that she doesn’t rent cars, she drives across the country,” he said.
According to the replies to parliamentary questions, deputy minister of trade, industry & competition (DTIC), Fikile Majola, got a BMW 5 series valued at R799,000 in October 2021. The department ordered the same car, at a cost of R743,000, for second deputy minister Nomalungelo Gina, but it is not clear if the vehicle was delivered.
Transport minister Fikile Mbalula was the recipient of a BMW 5 series with a price tag of R748,624.04 in January. Public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan and his deputy Phumulo Masualle each got an Audi A6 for R783,909.98 in March last year.
The deputy minister of higher education, Buti Manamela, got a BMW X3 for R761,000 in October 2021, while in the same month employment & labour deputy minister Boitumelo Moloi bought an Audi Q5 for R748,000. Bongani Lukhele, spokesperson for the DTIC, said the department was within the R800,000 threshold when it purchased the vehicles for the deputy ministers. “Please note that the price threshold of official vehicles for members of the executive was increased in 2019 from R700,000 to R 800,000,” he said, citing the Treasury directive.
There is one elite class of South Africans who are exempt from the cost of living crisis ... the very ANC cabinet that caused the poverty crisis in the first place
Leon Schreiber
DA MP
Public enterprises spokesperson Richard Mantu also cited the directive, saying his department was compliant when it purchased the two vehicles a year ago.
Schreiber slammed the spending on “flashy new wheels”.
“While every other citizen feels this pain every day at the taxi rank, fuel pump and cash register, there is one elite class of South Africans who are exempt from the cost of living crisis facing our country: the very ANC cabinet that caused the poverty crisis in the first place,” he said.
He said the lockdown’s travel restrictions did not affect the ANC cadres’ insatiable appetite for luxury vehicles.
“Since 2019, taxpayers have bought 24 new vehicles for ministers and deputy ministers, at a total cost of almost R19m. The average cost for the 24 vehicles purchased was R789,736 — well in excess of the limit supposedly established by the ministerial handbook.
“Ministers and former ministers, including Fikile Mbalula, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Pravin Gordhan, Tito Mboweni, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, Joe Phaahla, Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane and Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, all bought themselves flashy new wheels as poverty, hunger and hardship exploded all around them,” the DA MP said.