By Political Bureau
Minister in the Presidency Collins Chabane, whose job is to monitor the performance of his cabinet colleagues and government departments, has overspent on a government-issued credit card.
His office said in a written reply to a parliamentary question that Chabane had been issued with a Diners Club credit card with a R15 000 limit - but had overspent by R5 300 on a personal transaction and was making arrangements to repay the money.
"The card was over the limit due to extra payments made in his personal capacity for which arrangements have been made for repayment," his office said in the reply.
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Trollip said it was a recipe for disaster The reply shows Chabane made a transaction of R108 in August, another of R20 361 in September and a third of R2 304 in October.
The DA, which asked the question, has slammed the overspending.
The DA's parliamentary leader, Athol Trollip, said it was clear Chabane himself should be monitored.
"The fact that the minister in charge of performance, monitoring and evaluation is misusing an official credit card is extremely concerning and raises the question of how Minister Chabane will be able to perform his performance monitoring duties if he himself clearly needs to be monitored," said Trollip.
He said while the Ministerial Handbook forbade the use of state-issued credit cards for personal use, Chabane had done precisely that.
Trollip said it was a recipe for disaster for members of the executive to have access to state-issued credit cards. He said the presidency should take action against Chabane to show that frivolous expenditure of state money would not be tolerated.
Trollip said it was strange that Chabane had been issued with a card when the Ministerial Handbook discouraged the issuing of such cards to political office bearers who already had credit cards.
The DA now wants a detailed breakdown of what Chabane used the card for and why he was issued with one.
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This article was originally published on page 2 of Pretoria News on November 24, 2009
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