SIYABONGA SITHOLE
The DA has accused President Cyril Ramaphosa of secretly amending the Ministerial Handbook after it emerged that ministers will no longer be liable to pay for their water and electricity bills at their residences.
The party said it will be challenging the legality of the Ministerial Handbook, which prescribes the perks members of the national and provincial executives receive, in a complaint to the Public Protector.
This comes after recent reports indicating that government ministers were exempt from paying water and electricity bills due to the fact that South Africa’s ministers and deputy ministers do not pay for municipal services such as water and electricity at their official residences after Ramaphosa changed the rules of Cabinet’s perks.
This week, City Press reported that Ramaphosa had recently revised the handbook, saying that the Department of Public Works will now be responsible for paying for the water and electricity at state-owned residences. According to the DA, this is despite ministers and deputy ministers being one of the highest paid civil servants in the country, raking in R2.4 million a year for ministers and R2 million a year for their deputies.
This revelation has sparked an outcry on social media and parts of the country following Eskom's proposed tariff hikes as well as the recent Stage 4 load shedding becoming a common occurrence.
Previously, in the 2019 ministerial handbook, the state would pick up a bill for water and electricity of up to R5 000 at members of the executive's official residences, and if the bill is higher, the member would have to pay for it themselves.
Ramaphosa's April 2022 revision of the handbook has removed this limit, which means that the state will now pay the full bill for ministers, deputy ministers, premiers and MECs.
On Monday, after this public outcry, the government in a statement said as stipulated by the Ministerial Handbook, the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure was responsible for the costs associated with the provision of water and electricity to any state-owned residence.
The DA's spokesperson on public works, Dr Leon Schreiber said Ramaphosa has gone a step too far by trying to force taxpayers to foot the bill for ministers.
"Forcing South Africans to pay the private electricity and water bills for the very same ministers who have robbed citizens of access to these critical services is a slap in the face that the people will not accept. Not only are we challenging this latest set of handouts to ANC cadres, but our complaint to the Public Protector challenges the legality of the Ministerial Handbook in its entirety," Schreiber said.
Schreiber said it is clear that the handbook exists outside of the Constitution and the law, which is why Ramaphosa was able to secretly amend the handbook in April without informing parliament.
"In fact, because there is no law at all governing the existence of the Handbook, parliament has no authority to exercise oversight or approve the contents of the Handbook. The president is completely unaccountable for the way in which he forces taxpayers to fund the ANC gravy train," he said.
The party said Ramaphosa has violated the executive ethics code which requires the cabinet and the president to act in the interests of its citizens.
"That the president has dictatorial powers in this area violates Sections 2 (c) and (d) of the Executive Ethics Code, which stipulate that members of Cabinet, including the president, must act “in the best interest of good governance” taking into account “the promotion of an open, democratic and accountable government.” It is also a violation of Section 3 of the Code, because the practice of the president dishing out patronage to his own Cabinet colleagues constitutes a conflict of interest," Schreiber said.