Rental debts owed to the Department of Public Works include outstanding sums from Cabinet members and senior officials – in some cases for rentals as low as R75 a month, according to the Sunday Times.
The article concerns attempts by public works minister Patricia de Lille to recoup the debt.
The biggest defaulters are government departments, state-owned companies, municipalities and big corporations such as cellphone companies.
The article reveals payment arrangements for the accommodation used by members of the executive (ministers and deputy ministers). They are allowed to occupy two state houses, one in Cape Town and the other in Pretoria, one rent-free and the other for a rental of 1% of their salary.
Ministers, their deputies, directors-general (DGs) and other officials pay their rental through a stop-order facility, though in some cases DGs prefer to pay rental (in some cases as little as R75 a month) by EFT for a full year in advance. As the Sunday Times notes, it is not clear how they can default with debit orders in place.
To give a sense of how nominal the charges are, consider the example of the property occupied by former deputy minister of sport Gert Oosthuizen, who owed R299 975, which – after he left the executive – was let to him at a market rate of R30 000 a month. As a deputy minister he was charged just R1 200 a month. Oosthuizen has settled his bill.
[Image: The Democratic Alliance, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=79036192]