Durban - The ANC Youth League in KwaZulu-Natal came out guns blazing on Tuesday – slamming the eThekwini Municipality for a boat cruise for 40 councillors at the expense of ratepayers.
The spending also raised the ire of Durban people on social media, while a UDM MP in Parliament on Tuesday called on the National Treasury stop the splurge.
The Mercury reported on Tuesday how 40 city councillors in the economic development and planning committee had been invited on a three-day “conference cruise” to Mozambique’s Portuguese Island on the luxurious MSC Sinfonia at the weekend. This was despite Pravin Gordhan’s and President Jacob Zuma’s call for tougher austerity measures from government departments and municipalities.
Also read: eThekwini sending 40 councillors on cruise
The youth league condemned the expenditure and described it as “reckless”. It called on councillors to “boycott” the excursion.
The trip is organised by the eThekwini Maritime Cluster, the municipality and Tourism KZN.]
The municipality defended the conference at sea as critical for the city’s cruise industry.
“This form of opulence in the face of poverty can never be tolerated,” the league said. “The money spent on this fancy trip could have been used to finance up to six students in an institution of higher learning and a caring municipality would rather finance students than some cocktail trip.”
The league said any councillor who defied the call risked losing its support.
“The ANC Youth League will mobilise ANC members not to vote for a member who attends trips at the expense of taxpayers in the midst of high levels of youth unemployment.”
UDM MP Cynthia Majeke’s tabled motion for the Treasury to stop the trip was objected to by an unidentified ANC MP in parliament on Tuesday.
She said costs could be more than the estimated R160 000 with other costs “that might occur during the trip” not factored in.
The president and the minister of finance had introduced austerity measures.
She called on the relevant government stakeholders, in particular the Treasury, to look into the relevance of the conference and what value it would add.
Frustrated citizens bombarded social media.
Facebook user Christopher Mark Lowe took to the Bulwer Community Safety Forum page to lobby “equally outraged” citizens to contact Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan’s office to “express your opposition to this sinful waste of our money”.
On Tuesday afternoon municipal spokeswoman Tozi Mthethwa sent a one-paragraph comment.
“The municipality would like to place on record that it is not funding any sea cruise. Councillors from the relevant cluster wanting to attend the cruise conference will, like any other paying delegate, register to participate,” she said.
This seemed to contradict the city’s earlier statement that a cost comparison had been done and it was similar to sending a councillor to Johannesburg for a day.
The Mercury