We have a right to know how our tax money is being spent. "Cape Town – The costs of holiday flights for President Jacob Zuma and Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe have been classified. This classification comes just over a month after the Minister of Defence and Military Veterans, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula revealed the costs of VIP flights for Presidential vacations to be in the millions; and then faced a media storm over the matter. “The Minister is clearly trying to protect President Jacob Zuma and Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe from public outrage about the excessive amount of money being spent on VIP flights,” said Democratic Alliance (DA) Defence spokesperson David Maynier. In response to Maynier’s Parliamentary questions probing the total amount spent on flights for Presidential holidays the Minister said: “The air transport requests for the President do not indicate the purpose of the trip/flight as all VVIP movements are confidential for security reasons” However, the evidence suggests that this is simply not true said Maynier. The air transport request for Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe’s recent end-of-year holiday in the Seychelles clearly indicated that purpose of the trip was a “vacation”. According to Maynier a letter, dated 01 November 2012, by an official in the Office of the Presidency wrote to the South African Air Force, requesting assistance with VIP flights as follows: “We hereby wish to inform you that the Deputy President will be travelling to Seychelles for his vacation from 23rd December 2012 to 04 January 2013.” In the not too recent past however the Minister had no concerns about disclosing the cost of these flights. Previous replies to parliamentary questions revealed that: A total of R1.62 million was spent on nine Falcon 900 flights and twenty seven Oryx helicopter flights for President Jacob Zuma’s weekend holiday in Bazaruto, Mozambique; and A total of R1.02 million was spent on two Falcon 900 flights for Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe’s end-of-year holiday in the Seychelles. “We must be the only constitutional democracy in the world where the costs of VIP flights, and the guidelines regulating the use of VIP flights, by a serving president are classified,” said Maynier, adding that he will be submitting further questions to find out what legal authority the Minister has used to classify the VIP flight information."
Posted on: Wed, 09 Oct 2013 12:55:20 +0000
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