South Africa spends R600m maintaining MPs' and ministers' Cape Town homes, Parliament told
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Taxpayers have paid R600 million over five years to maintain three parliamentary villages and ministers' official residences in Cape Town under a single public works contract, as Parliament moves to take over their management.
Taxpayers have been paying R600 million over five years to keep the homes of MPs and ministers in Cape Town maintained. The bill covered three parliamentary villages housing MPs from outside the city, as well as ministers' official residences, all under a single contract held by the national Department of Public Works and Infrastructure.
Simon Mashigo, head of Parliament's institutional support services division, told an ad hoc committee on Friday that public works had not provided a breakdown of the costs. "The current contract the [department] has signed with the facilities management contractor is R600m over a period of five years, which covers all parliamentary villages but also includes the ministerial residences," Mashigo said. "They have not given us a breakdown in terms of how much relates to the three parliamentary villages."
The facilities management contract is due to expire in May next year, but Mashigo said it may have to be extended until the new law being drafted by the committee formally hands the villages to Parliament. The bus contract has already expired and was extended for one year as part of the transitional arrangements.
The committee's draft Parliamentary Villages Bill, published in the Government Gazette on July 24, would scrap the 1998 law governing the villages and make Parliament, instead of the department, responsible for managing and maintaining Acacia Park in Goodwood, Laboria Park in Belhar and Pelican Park in Zeekoevlei.
Mashigo said the department had raised concerns that Parliament was encroaching on its constitutional mandate, and that the dispute might have to be settled at the highest level of government. "It may come to a point where [President Cyril Ramaphosa] has to be engaged, or the leader of government business, so that that issue is resolved," he said. He added that the City of Cape Town owns the land on which Laboria Park stands, which could limit Parliament's ability to take full control of the village or upgrade it without the municipality's power of attorney.
Police also told the committee that officers guarding the villages cannot open criminal cases there, leaving residents to report crimes at the nearest police station, and that firearms cannot be stored at the villages' control points.