Deputy President Paul Mashatile has been in the news this week for all the wrong reasons — and not for the first time.
Questioned in the media on how he could afford not two homes — one at the luxurious Waterfall Estate in Johannesburg's Midrand and another in Constantia, Cape Town — worth almost R70m combined, on his government salary of R3.2m a year, he said they belonged to “family”. But governance experts say Mashatile is being obtuse, and that his “lifestyle needs close scrutiny”.
Mashatile also declared a more “modest” third home — his 3,000m² property in the Johannesburg suburb of Kelvin, near Sandton, which he has owned for more than two decades. It is unclear who lives there.
The high-rolling deputy president was meanwhile fined R10,000 for failing to declare a diamond gift his wife Humile received from controversial businessman Louis Liebenberg in 2023. Parliament’s joint committee on ethics and members’ interests recommended that the National Assembly reprimand Mashatile and impose a R10,000 fine “for his failure to declare a gift to his wife in the confidential part of his financial and registrable interests register”.
The latest news comes just weeks after parliament heard he had racked up close to R8m in expenditure on international trips since taking office in July 2024, including a working visit to Japan that set back taxpayers more than R2.3m, with four nights' accommodation costing a cool R900,000.
The man supposedly in the running to take over the presidency of the party and possibly even the country has a lot of explaining to do — but don't hold your breath for an answer any time soon.
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