The content on this page is not written by Polity.org.za, but is supplied by third parties. This content does not constitute news reporting by Polity.org.za.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has updated its Wasteful Expenditure Monitor and the increased total now stands at R900 million, after the Minister of Public Service and Administration Richard Baloyi confirmed late last week in a parliamentary reply that he had spent R1.4-million on two new ministerial vehicles.

Minister Baloyi confirmed that his department purchased a BMW X5 3.0d at a cost of R712 400 and a Mercedes Benz E350 CDI at a cost of R666 849.

In the Western Cape, the DA administration has put a block on the purchase of all new ministerial vehicles; we believe that buying luxury cars even while most South Africans struggle in poverty is an unacceptable betrayal of the public interest.
This is just the latest is a string of reports of fruitless and wasteful expenditure by the ANC government:

It is costing the Gauteng provincial government R117.5m to cancel its motorsport contracts. This is another enormous waste of money, which could have been avoided had the right decisions been made years ago. Economic Development MEC Firoz Cachalia tried to claim that his department had saved R796m by cancelling the A1GP, SBK and Superstars contracts. In reality, his department did not save R700m, it lost R117m!
The Department of Transport spent R75.7-million on hosting four conferences between 2007 and 2009, which included nearly R12-million spent on VIP shuttle services, and millions more spent on various forms of entertainment, advertising, cocktail functions and promotional gifts. The Department is yet to explain how these conferences added a single cent of value to any of the Department's infrastructure delivery projects.
About R100 million of taxpayers' money has been lost due to financial mismanagement in 18 KwaZulu-Natal municipalities, the province's co-operative governance MEC confirmed in February.

As part of its oversight role as the official opposition, the DA introduced the Wasteful Expenditure Monitor last year as a means of measuring the extent of the ANC government's fruitless and wasteful expenditure of public funds, and to demonstrate how often the needs of the ANC elite are put before the needs of ordinary South Africans. Despite numerous calls by opposition parties and a public outcry to stop living the lives of the rich and famous and instead focus on serving the people that put them in power, the ANC government persist in frittering away money on fancy cars and lavish parties.

The DA will continue to call on government departments and members of the executive to do the right thing and, following the example of the DA provincial government in the Western Cape, implement measures to monitor and cut back on unnecessary government spending. We will continue to monitor the situation and make the necessary additions to the Wasteful Expenditure Monitor as and when they occur.