‘Luxury cloaked in secrecy’ – Ntshavheni explains why she won’t disclose her official travel expenses

Minister in the Presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, says she will not compromise national security for political expediency by disclosing information not meant for the public.

The minister was responding to ActionSA, which on Tuesday wrote to the Speaker of Parliament, Thoko Didiza, to demand urgent intervention and “defend the integrity of Parliament’s oversight role”.

The party sent a parliamentary question to the minister, requesting a breakdown of all her official travel and that of her deputy ministers since they assumed office on 3 July 2024.

ActionSA had requested an explanation of the purpose and justification for each trip, destination details, costs incurred, and the names of the accompanying staff.

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In her response, the minister wrote: “The reply to this question is forwarded to the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence.”

However, this was not a satisfactory response, according to ActionSA.

Ntshavheni ‘brazenly evaded public accountability’

The party released a statement chastising the minister for “brazenly evading public accountability” with her response, which was sent “four months late”.

“This is nothing more than a deliberate attempt to further shield her spending from scrutiny. This conduct cannot be allowed to stand, and the reply must be made public immediately,” said the party.

“Every minister in the government of national unity (GNU) was asked the same question on travel expenses. All others who responded did so in a transparent manner. Only the Minister in the Presidency has opted to hide, and we ask, ‘why?’”

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“Is it because ActionSA recently exposed over R200 million in excessive GNU spending, including the Deputy President’s outrageous R950 000 bill for four nights of accommodation in Japan and the R160 000 spent by the Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture on a trip to Burkina Faso that never took place?”

ActionSA accused the GNU of turning the public purse into a private travel slush fund, and the minister of disregarding the public’s right to know how their taxes are spent.

“South Africans deserve leaders who serve with humility, not luxury cloaked in secrecy.”

Briefing the media on the outcomes of the post-Cabinet meeting on Thursday, Ntshavheni said she does account for her actions, just not in the way ActionSA wants.

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The minister said her work on state security requires that some of her travel plans be kept confidential, as sharing them could compromise national security.

‘Nothing wrong’

Ntshavheni said the state security only discloses summits that the ministers are attending, not private meetings.

“It’s just not the travel to say which country you have gone to, it’s to say what meetings and all those other details. If you understand the nature of my work, you’ll realise that 80% of my travel is for work related to state security. If we release it in public, it would compromise some of the initiatives we’re working on,” said Ntshavheni.

“You’ll recall when the Russia-Ukraine war started and the African leaders initiative led by Ramaphosa to go to Ukraine, it required some of us to take that type of preparatory work for that and if you disclose such details, you compromise the operations that you are running as a country and thus fail national security.

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“It is for that reason that the National Strategic Intelligence Act has provided the joint standing committee on intelligence for us to fully account for those things that cannot be fully shared in the public domain.

“There are meetings that we attend that we do not post at all, because what we have posted are summits, not meetings. There is nothing wrong because we are allowed by law to provide the committee, unless ActionSA wants to claim the committee has no capacity to hold us accountable. Those members were appointed by parliament and sworn in to hold us accountable. We will not sacrifice national security for political expediency.”

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