MBOMBELA – The Department of Public Works, Roads and Transport (DPWRT) officially withdrew the answers it had provided to provincial legislature about vehicles purchased for the Office of the Premier.
The differing answers provided by the department and the premier’s office have caused a furore, with premier Mr David Mabuza and MEC, Ms Dumisile Nhlengethwa distancing themselves from the response submitted by a DPWRT official.
Nhlengethwa said it was not authorised by her or the head of the department. The official “attempted to respond on behalf of other departments, despite not being asked to do so and without even verifying such information with them,” she wrote to legislature last week.
Office of the Premier spokesman Mr Zibonele Mncwango has maintained throughout that the official response to written questions posed by DA did not address the question posed to it.
The same ones were posed to each department pertaining to the vehicles it had bought and rented for its own use.
The official in DPWRT submitted answers on behalf of all departments. According to the information, the 12 provincial departments spent a total of R36,5 million on purchases and vehicle rentals since 2009.
In the case of the Office of the Premier the answers differed in two respects; DPWRT did not provide reasons for the purchase of each car and it cited a Range Rover 3,7 bought at a cost of R1,4 million. According to Mncwango, this is a pool vehicle “occasionally used by the premier in difficult terrains”.
Mr Anthony Benadie, DA provincial leader, dubbed the debacle “Cargate” and called the withdrawal of official responses, an oversight function available to members of the legislature, “unprecedented”.
“This is the first time in my 11 years in provincial government that responses from the executive to parliamentary questions have been withdrawn, in what can only be described as a desperate attempt to censor the responses from the executive to save Mabuza and his cabinet’s reputation.
“Rather than investigating the damning contents of the original replies, it would appear that legislature is towing the line to protect the premier and his executive.
“This ordeal also raises questions about the credibility of other responses provided to DA.”
• The withdrawal of answers to parliamentary questions is not entirely unprecedented. In 2012 the Department of Defence and Military Veterans also withdrew a reply from former minister Ms Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, that her predecessor Ms Lindiwe Sisulu had used a Gulfstream Jet more than 200 times at a cost of R200 000 a trip during her tenure. Sisulu maintained she only used the jet 35 times.
