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Four ministers have thus far refused to provide Parliament with the details of their state-funded hotel stays on the grounds of “security” concerns. I will therefore today be submitting applications under the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) to compel these ministers to provide Parliament with all documentation related to their hotel stays since May 2009.

In August this year, the Democratic Alliance (DA) submitted parliamentary questions to each minister requesting details of the hotels they have stayed in and at what cost to the public.

The ministers who have cited “security” concerns as a reason for not revealing the details of their hotel stays are:
Minister of Defence, Lindiwe Sisulu
Minister of Energy, Dipuo Peters
Minister of Labour, Mildred Oliphant
Former Minister of Public Service and Administration, Richard Baloyi
The reason provided by these ministers for their failure to answer the DA’s question is disingenuous. It also represents a blatant disregard for Parliament’s oversight role.

Supplying information about where ministers have stayed in the past will in no way compromise their security in the future. In addition, ten of these ministers’ cabinet colleagues have provided details of their hotel stays to Parliament, and have seemingly not been concerned about any “security” risks in doing so.

Not only have ministers sought to provide flimsy excuses for not replying to the DA’s questions, but eighteen have failed to provide answers at all. According to parliamentary procedure, if written questions are not answered by the end of the year, they fall off the question paper. This convenient loophole means that ministers who do not wish to reveal what may be potentially embarrassing information can avoid doing so, simply by not submitting their answers before the end-of-year deadline.

Ministers must be held accountable for how they choose to spend state funds. Therefore, the DA will not only be submitting PAIA applications to the ministers who cited “security” concerns, but will also be submitting PAIA requests to those ministers who have not yet answered these questions at all.

We have already seen that ministers have abused their privileges by staying at luxurious 5-star hotels and wasting public funds on personal comforts:
Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Tina Joemat-Pettersson, revealed that she spent almost R1,6 million on her hotel stays; and
Minister of Transport, S’bu Ndebele, racked up a R1,4 million state-financed hotel bill.
These two ministers’ expenditure has triggered an investigation by the Public Protector. The inescapable inference is that the other ministers are stalling on the release of their hotel bill information because they worry the same will happen to them.

These ministers must come clean with Parliament and the South African people about their hotel spending. In addition, they must explain why 5-star hotel stays are deemed an appropriate use of state resources.