In her powerful attack on the Mini Budget, the Democratic Alliance’s Premier of the Western Cape Helen Zille illustrated her argument by disclosing how four senior ANC Parliamentarians “squeezed every drop of benefit from the Ministerial Handbook” at a conference last week in Geneva, Switzerland.
Instead of catching Kombis, using public transport or simply walking to the venue like other delegates to the Inter-Parliamentary Union conference, Zille says the four ANC bigwigs each commissioned a chauffeur-driven Mercedes Benz to ferry them around.
Prompted by a member of the Biznews community, I asked Zille to name and shame. She obliged.
Heading the list of the four Geneva Gravy Trainers is Baleka Mbete (64), long-serving ANC chairperson and Speaker of the National Assembly. Mbete was briefly the country’s Deputy President, serving in that position in 2008 and 2009 during Kgalema Motlanthe’s brief reign.
The former teacher is no stranger to profligacy. In 2006 Mbete chartered a jet, costing taxpayers over R400 000, to fly herself and a staff member to Liberia for the inauguration of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. SA’s then Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma also attended, Â travelling on a commercial airline.
Mbete was back in the spotlight recently when having Julius Malema and his red-overalled EFF members ejected from Parliament for chanting that President Jacob Zuma “Pay back the money” – the R250m which the National Treasury spent on his Nkandla homestead (click here to watch the video).
The three other Geneva Gravy Trainers are relative unknowns Raseriti Tau; Ms Masefako Dikgale; and Ms MG Boroto. All were only recently promoted to senior posts in the Zuma Administration.
Five months ago, Tau (43), a senior member of the Communist Party in the Northern Cape, was appointed as deputy chair of the National Council of Provinces. Dikgale, who lists reading, singing and praying as hobbies, is one of the House Chairs in the National Council of Provinces. Boroto was appointed in June as one of three House Chairs in Parliament.
Zille writes: “A kombi was arranged for the other five South African delegates, although the two ANC members among them also chose to travel with their esteemed senior colleagues in the luxury German sedans. Most of the delegates from Parliaments in the European Union used public transport or walked to get around.”
@alechogg @helenzille good luck getting ANY sort of effective austerity measures passed through this parliament
— MorneGoliath (@MorneGoliath) October 30, 2014
