The reported removal of the R5,000 ministerial utilities cap means South Africans will have to fork out even more to pay the bills of Cabinet ministers.
CASH-strapped South African taxpayers are expected to part with even more cash at month-end following the reported removal of the R5000 utilities cap for ministers.
Some ministers are already exempt from blackouts as they reside in key-point areas, while it has previously been reported that other ministers are exempt from load shedding thanks to the installation of generators at their homes.
Responding to the cap removal, The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) has called on opposition parties to hold each other to account.
Speaking to eNCA, Outa’s legal head Stefanie Fick said that ministers are already earning big salaries, and political parties should be able to hold each other accountable to make sure this does not happen.
“It is always civil society that has to be angry about these things and do something about, and putting it out there, so there is a public discourse, and hopefully someone does something about it,” Fick said.
She said that while ministers are entitled to perks, these perks need to be reviewed holistically.
“We need to look at the economic position that South Africans find ourselves in. We have gone through Covid and state capture and know the enormous amount of monies that left SA, and we are struggling,” Fick added.
The DA’s Dr Leon Schreiber said that with the cost of electricity increasing by 356% over the last decade and Eskom’s proposed further increase of 32% next year, the removal of the cap will see taxpayers forking out even more for ministers.
