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ActionSA can now reveal that the Ministry of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA), led by Minister Velenkosini Hlabisa, has racked-up a travel bill in excess of R10 million since he and his deputies assumed office.

In a reply to ActionSA’s parliamentary question received from the CoGTA Ministry, the Ministry provided the following astounding figures: 

⁠Minister Hlabisa's international and domestic travel since assuming office totals                         R3 462 238.03.

Deputy Minister Burns-Ncamashe's international travel since assuming office totals                              R 3 959 611.6.

Since assuming office, Deputy Minister Masemola's international and domestic travel totals               R 2 620 586.26.

While the reply neglects to provide an itemised breakdown of all the line items, we note that some of the travel is for domestic responsibilities but the lions share is for overseas travel and one can only determine that Minister Hlabisa appears to have doubled-down on his predecessors and colleagues bad habits.

Just last month ActionSA revealed that the Ministry of Minerals and Petroleum Resources, under the stewardship of Minister Gwede Mantashe, spent R1.92 million on, what appears to be, luxury international flights and accommodation since September 2024. While this travel bill is exorbitant, it is dwarfed by the Ministry of Cooperative Governance.

In this apparent obsession with overseas travel, Minister Hlabisa would do well to remember that many of South Africa’s 257 municipalities languish in abject dereliction while he and his lieutenants jet-set across the globe. Our municipalities are struggling to make ends meet either through financial mismanagement of their own doing or through the glaring lack of resources which this staggering travel bill would have gone some way to alleviating.

The information provided highlights a disturbing continuation of old habits within this new government of national unity, a reliance on costly and extravagant travel arrangements despite the mounting socio-economic challenges faced by ordinary South Africans. Under the guise of official duties, taxpayer money is being drained to fund what appears to be lavish travel expenditure. These patterns are symptomatic of a broader failure by the ANC to prioritise fiscal discipline in governance.

ActionSA, last year, launched our GNU Performance Tracker which continues to track multiple government performance metrics including its travel domestically and abroad. In so doing, we can now expose that the combined travel of the Ministries of Minerals and Petroleum Resources and CoGTA comes to a whopping total of R 11 964 756 in less than a year. 

ActionSA maintains that transparency in government spending is essential to restore public trust. This response is part of our broader effort to hold officials accountable and to shed light on excessive and wasteful expenditure. When millions of South Africans are unemployed, and essential services remain underfunded, every cent of public money must be spent prudently.

We reiterate our call for stricter regulations on travel expenses for government officials, including:

⁠Mandatory disclosure of travel class and justification for costs exceeding predetermined thresholds.

Comprehensive audits of travel arrangements to identify potential wastage.

A prioritisation of local engagement and the use of digital platforms for international collaboration where possible.

ActionSA is committed to championing a government that places the needs of South Africans first, not the comforts of its ministers. We will continue to demand accountability on behalf of the citizens whose hard-earned taxes fund these extravagances.

Issued by ActionSA Member of Parliament Alan Beesley