The Eastern Cape province has defended a planned visit to Germany by its premier and senior officials in what has been dubbed a ”Soccer World Cup junket” by a watchdog body.
The visit includes ”a focus on the South African cultural manifestation during the World Cup”, the province explained in a statement on Friday.
”It is important to note that the World Cup has a strong arts-and-culture aspect. The centrality of [the] arts-and-culture programme in the World Cup cannot be over-emphasised.”
The visit is partly aimed at showcasing South African arts and culture, the statement read, with Premier Nosimo Balindlela and Minister of Arts and Culture Pallo Jordan ”lead[ing] South African cultural workers” to the Cologne Summer Festival during this period.
”It is not true that they are just going to the World Cup,” Balindlela’s spokesperson Masiza Mazizi said. ”She [Balindlela] is not going there for fun. She is not corrupt at all.”
The Public Service Accountability Monitor (PSAM) said the ”junket” for Balindlela, her husband, and several provincial and municipal officials should be declared fruitless and wasteful expenditure by the auditor general.
Mazizi confirmed Balindlela’s husband will be among the group. ”The ministerial handbook says it is right for her to go with a spouse,” he said.
The rest of the entourage includes two provincial ministers, three mayors, the speaker of the legislature, the province’s 2010 World Cup strategic manager and four other senior officials.
Mazizi could not say how much the trip would cost.
”While … it may be important for national sports department officials and those directly involved in the technical planning and management of facilities for the 2010 World Cup to attend the current World Cup in Germany, there is absolutely no justification for Eastern Cape provincial and local government politicians to do so,” the PSAM statement read.
A business-class round trip from Johannesburg to Frankfurt on South African Airways is priced from R31 000 to R34 000, it said.
”This means that even if just the premier, her husband, MECs [provincial ministers], the speaker, and the … mayors fly business class … the air fares alone will cost the taxpayer between R282 000 and R305 000.”
Guidelines for the conduct of public representatives stipulate that international visits ”should offer real value and benefit” for South Africa.
Members should be accompanied by the ”absolute minimum number of officials”, and apply caution in determining the ”feasibility of their spouses accompanying them abroad”.
”Clearly, no such caution has been applied in this case. In the event that the premier proceeds with this trip, the PSAM will call for the money to be recovered from those individuals and officials included on the trip as is required by the Public Finance Management Act in cases of fruitless and wasteful expenditure.”
It called for a forensic audit into the matter.
Balindlela’s office said another aim of the trip is to boost political and economic ties between the Eastern Cape and the German province of Lower Saxony, and learning from its experiences in preparing for the current World Cup.
”The Eastern Cape province, as one of the hosting provinces [of the 2010 World Cup], has to be actively involved in [the] 2006 World Cup,” read the statement.
”This will ensure that the province will be able to prepare itself adequately for hosting games during [the] 2010 Fifa World Cup as the province will have had witnessed strategies of organising an event of the World Cup magnitude.”
The delegation, minus Balindlela, will also attend an international business investors’ conference.
The visit will take place in two legs, the province said. The premier will leave with part of the delegation on Saturday and return on July 4. The provincial ministers and their officials leave on June 27 and return on July 11. — Sapa