New Public Works Minister Macpherson to freeze acquisition of new properties for ministerial use
Dean Macpherson said it was unacceptable that as the single biggest landlord in the country, the state did not have a grip on its assets.
Dean Macpherson (right) was sworn-in as the minister of public works and infrastructure at the CTICC in Cape Town on 3 July 2024. Picture: @DepartmentPWI/X
CAPE TOWN - No new property will be bought to house ministers, neither will they be allowed to rent private property for office needs.
That's the word from new public works minister, the Democratic Alliance (DA)'s Dean Macpherson.
He said it was unacceptable that as the single biggest landlord in the country, the state did not have a grip on its assets.
Laying down the law at his swearing-in ceremony, Macpherson said that his first order of business would be to send a note to Cabinet that he would be freezing the acquisition of private properties for ministerial or office use.
"We have 88,000 options for them to choose from, so I'm sure they can find something there. And that's to say we have to start spending money on the things that count."
He said that while security considerations would be taken into account, there would be no extra frills for ministers who lived in state property.
In the last administration, the state spent more than R93 million renovating ministerial homes.
The public works department came under flak from the DA in 2022 for spending money on generators for ministers to counter the impact of load shedding, something the Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni denied in a televised interview in March.
"Let me be very clear. There’s not a single rand that will be spent on any house that's in the ownership of government. It's not going to happen."
In May, Macpherson's predecessor and now deputy, Sihle Zikalala, revealed to Parliament that taxpayers had spent almost a million rand to replace generators at three ministerial residences.