Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure Dean Macpherson. (GCIS/Supplied)
- Newly installed Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Dean Macpherson is tightening the belt on spending on accommodation and office space procurement for MPs, ministers and their deputies.
- Macpherson says the days of paying millions for housing stock are over.
- He proposes that the money instead be spent on infrastructure in such a way that will turn the country into a “construction site”.
New Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Dean Macpherson has told Cabinet members that no new housing stock or offices will be procured for parliamentarians, ministers, and deputy ministers.
Macpherson, a DA MP, was announced as the public works and infrastructure minister in the government of national unity arrangement that makes up the seventh administration.
His office said allocations for lawmakers’ accommodation would be made from existing government properties and that “no requests for new procurement will be entertained”.
Macpherson’s statement comes after years of the department’s heavy spending on accommodation for parliamentarians, deputy ministers, and ministers, refurbishing rentals, and procuring office space.
READ | ‘Walking into fire’: Key infrastructure job for new Cabinet blood Dean Macpherson
In 2021, News24 reported that the department had splurged over R100m for the upkeep of three parliamentary villages in Cape Town, while another R200 million was forked out for maintaining the parliamentary precinct between 2018 and 2020.
Last year, about R1.4 million was spent on kitchen upgrades, R240 000 to get rid of cockroaches, R54 000 to replace a curtain rail, and R50 million to ensure that the generators of ministers and their deputies were working while the rest of the country was plunged into load shedding darkness.
All told, the City Press reported at the time, these transactions were part of the estimated R93 million the department doled out from 2019 to 2022 to maintain the official residences for ministers, deputy ministers and directors-general, as well as their related municipal services.
“Those days are over,” said Macpherson, referring to the time of renting accommodation. He has vowed to divert those funds to turning South Africa into a “construction site”.
He added:
Furthermore, there will be no spending on existing properties, and members of the executive and Parliament will have to make do with existing furniture. Similarly, no new office rentals will be entertained.
Macpherson said all MPs, ministers and their deputies would be housed in available state properties.
“The department has confirmed to me that there is enough available stock to meet the needs of both the members of the executive and members of Parliament,” Macpherson said.
He added that the country’s constrained fiscal position necessitated his decision.
“My number one priority is to invest in infrastructure and turn South Africa into a massive construction site under the theme, ‘Let’s Build SA’,” Macpherson said.
ALSO READ | No more ‘nice-to-haves’, says KZN Public Works MEC as he vows to cut fruitless expenditure
Speaking on SAFM late Thursday afternoon, Macpherson said he would like to see more private sector funding – both locally and internationally – to partner with the government and invest in infrastructure to create “bankable projects”, which would turn South Africa into that envisaged construction site.
“And that’s got to be the goal because we’re not magically going to get to 3%, 4% or 5% [economic] growth through a sort of osmosis or magically doing so. It’s going to be infrastructure [that drives the growth],” Macpherson said.
