Basic Education minister Angie Motshekga bought a BMW 7 series and a Range Rover Sport for use in Cape Town and Pretoria when she was appointed.
The luxury BMW 730d, based in Cape Town, cost R894 500, while the sleek Ranger Rover Sport TDV8 she uses in Gauteng is valued at R807 000.
Less than a week after it was revealed that Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda spent R2.4-million on two new luxury vehicles, the Department of Basic Education has confirmed in a reply to a DA parliamentary question that Minister Angie Motshekga has also purchased two new vehicles - one BMW 730D, and one Range Rover Sport TDV8 - at a combined cost of R1.7-million.
In a written reply to a parliamentary question by the DA she said on Tuesday that the only extras fitted were mudguards, which cost an additional R2 500. for the Pretoria-based vehicle. The Cape Town car, she said, was not accessorised.
Motshekga said she bought the Range Rover because the car she was supposed to inherit on becoming minister was allocated to Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande.
The BMW was bought because the vehicle she inherited in Cape Town would have reached the end of its cycle next month.
According to the ministerial handbook, a minister may replace a vehicle when it has clocked up 120 000km or is five years old.
Responding to the same question, Public Service and Administration Minister Richard Baloyi indicated he might buy new vehicles soon.
Baloyi said the two cars he inherited - a 2004 BMW 530d and a 2005 Mercedes Benz E350 - had travelled 106 238km and 119 410km respectively.
This meant they were almost at the end of their lifespan in terms of ministerial guidelines.
However, he did not say when he would buy new vehicles, or what models he would opt for.
A departmental spokesperson said this information would be provided at a later stage.
Sports and Recreation Minister Makhenkesi Stofile, who has been in government for years, said he was still using two Mercedes Benz S350 models which he bought three years ago.
Opposition says minister two new state cars are extravagant and unnecessary
A copy of the reply follows below.
This sort of spending is extravagant and unnecessary - certainly it far exceeds the Minister's needs, the triumph of status over prudency. To put this kind of expenditure into context, if every government department is to spend this amount on new vehicles for its Minister over the course of the next year or years, it will cost the taxpayer approximately R60-million.
In delivering his budget vote to Parliament, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan warned that the state had to be more disciplined in the way it manages its money. He stated: "After seven years of growing budgets and rising revenues there is a degree of fiscal looseness in the system and now is the time to tighten up on that looseness." He continued, "Money is not the problem ... it is how we spend the money. This has to improve. In several sectors, budgets have grown exponentially but outputs have not increased in tandem".
That request seems to slipped passed the national administration's attention unnoticed.
The ANC government's continued misuse of public funds aside, South Africa is in the grips of a recession and of all people the Minister of Basic Education should be finely attuned to the strain on finances available to government and the urgent need for resources to be devoted to productive purposes. Nowhere is this more urgent than in education, where ordinary teachers and principles battle to come out on their salaries at the end of each month.
There is absolutely no reason that a new minister should be spending R1.7-million on luxury vehicles. The general public outrage that followed last week's revelations over Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda's R2.4-million vehicles demonstrates that the South African public is not willing to tolerate this kind of exorbitant wastage. The DA will be submitting a follow up parliamentary question to establish how this expenditure could possibly be of public interest.
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