Eat your hearts out, South Africans!
While the average citizen is battered by soaring living and fuel costs, it seems there’s no limit on luxury for members of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s bloated and well-paid executive.
Hot on the heels of news that ministers and their deputies will now enjoy unlimited free water and electricity at their official residences, it has emerged that they will also be entitled to employ more personal staff to further ease their burden.
This is contained in the latest version of the ministerial handbook, which provides guidelines on office benefits and perks that can be enjoyed by ministers, their deputies, premiers and MECs.
'Food aides', 'household aides' and 'portfolio co-ordinators' are some of the new posts created for ministers
Following pressure from the public, the presidency has now announced that the handbook will be reviewed.
But while it is still in place, “food aides”, “household aides’’ and “portfolio co-ordinators” are just some of the new posts created for ministers. Some of these positions pay up to R1m a year.
The new posts will cost taxpayers about R87m a year.
These positions were catered for in previous ministerial handbooks but were scrapped when Ramaphosa pledged to cut over-spending by implementing austerity measures in a 2019 handbook.
The latest handbook shows that Ramaphosa has reneged on a 2019 cabinet decision to limit the number of ministerial private staff to 11, increasing it to 15.
The handbook was quietly amended by Ramaphosa in April and is seen as a slap in the face of the public after the cost-cutting measures he introduced in 2019.
The changes mark a significant departure from the review Ramaphosa did then, when his administration drastically reduced the number of private staff for ministers and other perks such as car allowances.
At the time, the administration cited austerity measures, a tough economic environment and plummeting tax revenue.
Despite those economic circumstances becoming worse since then, Ramaphosa is allowing all his ministers, deputy ministers, premiers and MECs to embark on an expanded hiring spree.
Ministers will be entitled to appoint one “household aide”, essentially a domestic worker, in Pretoria and another in Cape Town, as they are allocated official residences in both the administrative and legislative capitals. This arrangement was catered for in past handbooks.
Each member of the executive is now entitled to also hire a “driver/messenger”. Ministers who are responsible for more than one portfolio can hire a “portfolio co-ordinator” — a position that comes with a pay package of just over R1.1m a year.
The Sunday Times understands that the 2019 changes to the handbook were largely not implemented as most ministers and their deputies already had food aides and household aides and could not fire them in the middle of their contracts. But other ministers never appointed food aides, leaving that function to be performed by private secretaries and other admin staff.
Government insiders have criticised the move to revive the posts, saying such positions are not necessary for ministerial offices as permanent departmental staff already fulfil those duties.
“The one I do not understand is the portfolio co-ordinator. What’s their job? There’s the department’s staff for that ... that function is also done by parliamentary liaison officers,” said a government official who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals.
The one I do not understand is the portfolio co-ordinator. What’s their job? There’s the department’s staff for that ... that function is also done by parliamentary liaison officers
On the role of the “food aide” for ministers, the insider said “they make sure that there’s tea, food and other drinks when ministers host stakeholders at their offices. They work very long hours because principals tend to host late meetings, but they do get paid overtime.”
Other food aides assist ministers at their official homes when they host guests.
This latest expansion of ministers’ perks is part of a raft of changes that included Ramaphosa deciding his ministers should no longer pay for water and electricity at their state-allocated houses.
Amid growing public outrage against the new perks, Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya, on Friday said the ministerial handbook would once more be subject to review.
Magwenya declined to comment on the increased ministerial staff appointments.
“The public outrage is appreciated considering the current social economic context and difficulties many South Africans face. As a government that listens as well as a president that is attuned to issues and concerns raised by South Africans, the ministerial handbook will be reviewed. Therefore it mutes a discussion on various elements until such time a review has been concluded,” said Magwenya.
A DA MP serving on the public service and administration portfolio committee, Leon Schreiber, said the amendments to the ministerial handbook could cost the public purse around R87m a year if all ministers, their deputies, premiers and MECs fully implemented it.
Schreiber said he suspected this was a plan by the governing party to create jobs for ANC staff it has been struggling to pay since last year.
“Ramaphosa’s apparent effort to accommodate staff members that the ANC can no longer afford to pay by expanding the private offices of ministers and deputy ministers will cost South Africans — who are already struggling under the heavy burden of skyrocketing food, electricity and fuel prices — an astounding R87m more every year,” said Schreiber.
“In addition to massively inflating the nominal limits on the size of staff components, Ramaphosa created a new loophole whereby ministers can circumvent these limits entirely. In a new clause that Ramaphosa added to the handbook, he says that ‘under exceptional circumstances and where additional tasks or projects are assigned to a member, the minister for the public service and administration may, upon request by a relevant executive authority, authorise additional appointments’.
"This clause empowers ANC cadre and public service minister Thulas Nxesi to approve the appointment of an unlimited number of other ANC cadres upon request from his fellow ANC cadres in cabinet.
“It is clear that Cyril Ramaphosa has completely betrayed the repeated promises he made when he assumed office to reduce the unbearable burden of wasteful and corrupt spending. Instead, through his secret amendments to the handbook, Ramaphosa has himself become one of the single biggest sources of wasteful and corrupt spending in South Africa.”
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