Bloated cabinet costing South African taxpayers millions of rand – DA
The bloated cabinet of former president Jacob Zuma continues to live on despite President Cyril Ramaphosa’s pledge to address government excesses, including giving due consideration to downsizing his cabinet, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Sunday.
The DA says if the president is serious about helping National Treasury reign in the runaway budget deficit he will have to cut the overall size of the cabinet, The Citizen reports.
“This cabinet is by far one of the biggest in the world with 35 ministers; far bigger than the United States at 15 ministers, Kenya with 18 ministers, and the United Kingdom with 21 ministers,” DA spokeswoman Desiree van der Walt said.
This year alone, the 35 ministers and 37 deputy ministers would earn R163.5 million and over R510.5 million over the medium-term. Further, the ministerial handbook currently recommended that ministers’ and deputy ministers’ private offices be limited to 10 and six staff respectively, but in many cases these numbers had been exceeded considerably. In total this year all private offices would cost a whopping R1.09 billion and R3.485 billion over the medium-term, she said.
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