So South Africa has just narrowly escaped having its economy status downgraded to “junk” and not even days later, the government is splurging R7 million on luxury vehicles for some of our ministers.
Now, don’t get me wrong, the news of Standard & Poor’s decision to leave our current economic status as “negative” had me in a bit of a celebratory mood myself. I treated my wife and I to dinner and a movie in Ster Kinekor’s Prestige cinema. I spared no expense. We had luxury reclining seats, we bought a large pop-corn combo deal, each and I even parked in the more expensive part of the mall we were at.
In hindsight, I guess I could have gone with the smaller pop-corn combo, because I left the movie feeling rather bloated and uncomfortably full. Nevertheless, a great time was had by my spouse and I; and we vowed to do it all over again – in a couple of months.
It seems though, that our government is in a much more jovial mood and has convinced Santa to come a little early for some of our ministers, who will be getting luxury vehicles. Some of which will be getting not one, but TWO luxury vehicles!
Among the list of vehicles to be bought for our ministers are Audi’s, BMWs, Toyota Fortuners and a Ford Everest in the mix.
Why all the fuss you ask? I mean R7 million is only a drop in the ocean when it comes to some of the other “expenditure” that has been exposed of late. To put it simply, this kind of extravagant spending on luxury vehicles for ministers who, by judging from their salaries, could buy their own cars, is a symbol of the endemic and systematic corruption that has crippled our economy to start with.
If these ministers who want to be seen as leaders had any morals, they would lead by example and buy small runaround cars that are inexpensive and relatively cheap to maintain. Instead, they are in line to either receive two vehicles each or a vehicle over the R1 milion mark.
Let that sink in for a while. Most people in South Africa can only dream of having a house that costs half of the wheels our ministers will be driving.
To add insult to injury though, a debate will be launched in parliament, to “discuss” whether the purchase of these luxury vehicles, is wasteful expenditure or not. To even entertain such a silly debate is a complete insult to the nation’s intelligence and smacks of political entitlement.
It is a well-known fact that the ANC has a major leadership crisis. If any of the ministers in line to receive these vehicles were to turn them down, perhaps it would go a long way to setting a new standard in the severely fractured ruling party.