Sport, Arts and Culture Minister Gayton McKenzie defended the expenditure on car hire while his office is waiting for the delivery of official vehicles for his official use.
McKenzie was responding to parliamentary questions from ActionSA MP Dereleen James, who asked whether there was any internal review conducted to determine whether the specified use of hired vehicles was reasonable and compliant with cost-containment measures.
He said the expenditure on car hire had been incurred through official procurement channels and was consistent with applicable National Treasury regulations and departmental supply chain management processes.
“The department has not identified the expenditure as wasteful or irregular. The procurement of permanent ministerial vehicles, once finalised, will resolve the underlying cost driver,” he said.
The minister stated that there were no functional vehicles available within the ownership department for his travel within South Africa, resulting in the need for such car hire.
“All transport expenditure is subject to normal departmental oversight and financial controls, and my office remains committed to ensuring that public funds are spent appropriately and in the public interest.”
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James had noted that McKenzie had, in a recent response to a parliamentary question, revealed that his department spent R2.1 million on car hire for him within six months, an average of approximately R350,000 per month.
She asked how McKenzie justified the extraordinary level of expenditure on car hire, particularly at a time when many artists, athletes, and cultural practitioners continued to struggle for adequate support from his department.
“What measures have been put in place within his department to ensure that transport-related expenditure represents value for money and does not amount to wasteful and/or excessive spending of public funds?” asked James.
In response, McKenzie said the South African Police Service conducted a threat assessment at the beginning of the term in 2024 and determined that he always required a greater contingent of security personnel in two groupings because of his frequent travel between Pretoria and Cape Town.
“I must trust the professional judgment of SAPS in this regard. It is worth noting that, since becoming minister, I was in fact made to scale down the size of my convoy and number of security personnel compared to the personal, private contingent that had been standard for me for more than a decade prior to my taking office.”
McKenzie said he did not seek to expand any official protection arrangements.
“I had also initially proposed using my private vehicles and supplementing the police close-protection officers with my own additional personnel, as a cost-saving measure, but the SAPS advised that this arrangement would be neither operationally feasible for security reasons, nor viable in terms of legal liability concerns.
“I am acutely aware that I have more vehicles and security personnel than most of my fellow ministers. It is also necessary that these vehicles can accelerate and reach speeds to escape dangerous situations more easily.”
He insisted it was not a choice made by himself.
“It is a direct consequence of the threat assessment,” said McKenzie before highlighting that the South African Local Government Association revealed in 2024 that 39 councillors died in KwaZulu-Natal.
“Nearly 100 municipal councillors, party officials, and senior municipal officials have been killed in political violence in this one province alone over the past decade. The security environment is real, and my assessment reflects it.”
He stated that he was “deeply uncomfortable” discussing his security arrangements as doing so could compromise the arrangements and the safety of protecting him.
However, McKenzie said his office placed an order through official channels for the purchase of permanent ministry vehicles around June or July 2025 after the National Treasury made available the provision of a vehicle list by the National Treasury.
“We continue to await delivery. I was formally advised approximately one month ago that the procurement had been approved, though the vehicles have still not been delivered.”
He was confident that as soon as the departmental vehicles were delivered, the need for car hire will fall away entirely or be vastly reduced.
“I wish to make it clear that the car hire costs are a direct consequence of the absence of allocated departmental vehicles, not a preference.”
Originally posted by IOL
