The Democratic Alliance (DA) has been informed by the Office of the Public Protector (PP) in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) that provincial Education MEC, Kwazi Mshengu, his Head of Department, Dr EV Nzama and their legal representatives appeared before officials, including investigators, earlier this week to account for spending more than half a million rand in less than six months on a luxury hired car.
The appearances come after the DA referred the matter to the PP’s Office in February this year in order to establish possible malfeasance around the expenditure.
Given that this matter is currently under investigation, it is only the PP’s office which may comment on the investigation, if it so wishes. The DA, as the complainant, is however aware of certain details of this week’s meeting. In this regard, we are hopeful that the MEC and his HOD will not attempt to block any lawful process that is already underway and that they will be completely transparent during this ongoing probe. This is the right thing to do.
Included in the investigation are several allegations around this matter. These include the fact that despite there was a departmental vehicle available for the MEC’s use, his Department still went ahead and hired a BMW X7 at an exorbitant cost. This amid public claims of skulduggery involving officials within the Department and related stakeholders.
The DA has and continues to maintain that MEC Mshengu could just have easily used his own personal vehicle when he took office. Instead, he chose to trot around the province in a luxury hired vehicle.
Then there is the fact that after the DA made the matter public, he began using his own car. While he is correct in saying that using his own vehicle may cost the state more, this is the lawful route and one which he should have taken despite the higher cost and one for which provision is made. Using is own vehicle would not be seen to be either irregular, fruitless, wasteful or unauthorised [IFWU] expenditure during any audit process.
It is almost certain that had the DA not raised this issue with the PP’s Office, MEC Mshengu would still be chauffeured around the province in the BMW X7, incurring IFWU expenditure.
The DA remains committed to exposing any form of frivolous expenditure and corruption by government. We look forward to the PP’s eventual findings on this matter.