Cape Town – Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni has refused to disclose her official travel expenses to the public, citing concerns about national security and the sensitive nature of her work.
“The reply to this question is forwarded to the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence,” the minister said while responding to ActionSA after the party sent a letter to the Speaker of Parliament, Thoko Didiza, on Tuesday, calling for urgent action to protect the integrity of Parliament’s oversight function.
According to The Citizen, Ntshavheni said that much of her travel involves state security matters, and revealing details such as meetings and specific initiatives could compromise national security operations.
Instead, she submitted her travel expense details to the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence, a secretive parliamentary committee closed to the public and broader Parliament, which she argues is the appropriate forum for accountability in such cases.
State security
“It’s just not the travel to say which country you have gone to, it’s to say what meetings and all those other details. If you understand the nature of my work, you’ll realise that 80% of my travel is for work related to state security. If we release it in public, it would compromise some of the initiatives we’re working on,” the report quoted Ntshavheni as saying.
This stance has drawn sharp criticism, particularly from the opposition party ActionSA. They accuse Ntshavheni of evading public accountability and deliberately shielding her spending from scrutiny by submitting her travel details to a closed committee rather than making them public.
“ActionSA expresses outrage at the receipt of a parliamentary reply that was four months late from the Minister in the Presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, who has brazenly evaded public accountability by dubiously submitting her travel expenses to the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence — a secretive committee closed to both the public and the broader Parliament,” the party said in a statement.
Urgent intervention
“This is nothing more than a deliberate attempt to further shield her spending from scrutiny. Consequently, ActionSA has today written to the Speaker of Parliament, Thoko Didiza, to demand urgent intervention and defend the integrity of Parliament’s oversight role. This conduct cannot be allowed to stand, and the reply must be made public immediately.
“Every Minister in the Government of National Unity (GNU) was asked the same question on travel expenses. All others who responded did so transparently. Only the Minister in the Presidency has opted to hide and we ask, “why?”
“Is it because ActionSA recently exposed over R200 million in excessive GNU spending, including the Deputy President’s outrageous R950,000 bill for four nights of accommodation in Japan and the R160,000 spent by the Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture on a trip to Burkina Faso that never took place?
“The GNU has turned the public purse into a private travel slush fund. The Minister in the Presidency’s actions reveal a flagrant disdain for accountability and a total disregard for the public’s right to know how their money is spent.”
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Compiled by Betha Madhomu
