Mboweni must stop ‘peddling lies’ with his ‘pompous ego’ and ‘verbal diarrhoea’ – Muthambi

Former public service and administration minister Faith Muthambi has lashed out at Finance Minister Tito Mboweni after he blamed her at a media briefing before the delivery of his medium-term budget speech for contributing to South African public servants being overpaid.

Mboweni called out Muthambi as well as another former public service and administration minister, Richard Baloyi, for allegedly signing off on wage agreements without a mandate to do so, putting strain on the fiscus in the process.

Muthambi responded: “Had the minister taken time off his busy social schedule to read the agreement on the salary adjustments and improvements on conditions of service in the public service, he would have not only found out who the signatories were at the time to blame, but also discharged his duties with integrity and do justice to the office he occupies.

“Mboweni must stop his verbal diarrhoea and being hellbent on playing the blame games and start applying his mind on how he can better contribute positively to South Africa than boosting his pompous ego any further.

“Trying to find scapegoats to justify his failures will not help him in any way.

“I challenge Minister Mboweni to produce evidence where I signed off this agreement.”

“I want to put it on record that the wage agreement was entered into long after I was no longer part of the executive and I am disappointed that my name seems to be the only thing in his vocabulary than him focusing on his duties at hand.

READ MORE: Tito Mboweni’s full medium-term budget speech

“He must apologise to the nation for peddling lies and explain what path he is crawling on.”

This after Mboweni name-checked Muthambi and Baloyi despite saying he was advised not to.

“I know I was told not to say this but Richard Baloyi and Faith Muthambi put us in this mess. They signed agreements without mandates and one of them has been made an ambassador. You must call a spade a spade and not a big spoon,” he said.

In his budget speech, Mboweni made it clear that government was serious about tightening its belt and reining in spending, and announced that government salaries would be frozen at their current levels “for the foreseeable future”.

He added that the cost of official cars would be capped R700,000, that all domestic travel by government officials would be in economy class, the amount that could be claimed for cellphone usage would be capped, and that subsistence and travel allowances for domestic and international trips woud be stopped.

He also “encouraged” the leadership in parliament to think about how they could further contain their compensation and benefits.

(Compiled by Daniel Friedman)

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