Presidency's R2.76m car hire bill for one deputy minister - IOL

The Presidency spent R2.76m hiring cars for deputy minister Kenny Morolong in just 11 months, about R250,000 a month, while minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni did not disclose to Parliament what her own travel had cost.

Morolong's car hire came to R167,141 in the nine months from July 2024 to March 2025, before rising to R2,757,409 between April 2025 and February 2026.

Ntshavheni gave the figures in a written parliamentary reply to ActionSA MP Dr Kgosi Letlape, who had asked for a full breakdown of travel by her and her two deputies since they took office on July 3 2024.

He asked for the purpose, destination and cost of every trip, including transport, accommodation and meals, as well as the names, roles and costs of every staff member who travelled with them.

Ntshavheni answered for her deputies, Morolong and Nonceba Mhlauli, but did not disclose her own trips.

She said that part of the question had been referred to Parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence.

Letlape also asked why Ntshavheni continued to “defy the Constitution”, as he put it, by not providing the information, while posting some of her official travel on X, formerly Twitter.

"The travels that are shared on social media platforms are those that are public in nature," Ntshavheni said in the reply.

"The information provided to the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence is for all the trips undertaken."

Ntshavheni, who is responsible for the State Security Agency as minister in the Presidency, has previously declined to disclose her travel costs publicly.

When ActionSA asked the same question of every minister in the government of national unity last year, she sent her answer to the intelligence committee as well.

She told reporters at a post-Cabinet briefing in June last year that about 80% of her travel was state security work, and that she would not put national security at risk for political gain.

"If we release it in public, it would compromise some of the initiatives we're working on," she said at the time.

ActionSA said then that she was the only minister who had chosen to hide her costs, and that her reply had arrived four months late.

In January, the party's tracker of ministers' international travel put the Cabinet's bill at almost R450m over 18 months.

Ntshavheni's spending was left out of that total because she had not disclosed it.

The latest reply showed that the Presidency spent R10.5m on travel for the two deputy ministers and their staff between July 2024 and February 2026.

Morolong's office accounted for R7.36m of that, more than double the R3.14m spent on Mhlauli's office.

Morolong, an ANC MP from Schweizer-Reneke in North West and a former deputy chairman of the National Youth Development Agency, has been a deputy minister in the Presidency since March 2023.

His own travel cost R1.34m in the first nine months of the period and R3.71m in the 11 months that followed, a total of R5.06m.

Car hire accounted for most of the increase.

Over the same two periods, his accommodation fell from R850,221 to R375,686, while his flights rose from R292,893 to R528,882.

Car hire made up R2.93m of the R4.54m spent on his whole office between April 2025 and February 2026.

Across both deputy ministers' offices, car hire came to R3.8m of the R6.4m spent in that period, almost six rand in every 10.

Morolong's staff also ran up large bills.

Between July 2024 and March 2025, subsistence and travel costs for his head of office came to R141,553, more than four times the R33,419 recorded for Morolong himself.

The head of office's accommodation over those nine months cost a further R374,318.

Between April 2025 and February 2026, the receptionist in Morolong's office ran up R70,730 in car hire.

The purposes given for his office's travel included Parliament, imbizos, parliamentary debates, Women's Day, the SA Traditional Music Achievement Awards and a state funeral.

Mhlauli, a former spokesperson for the Ministry in the Presidency, was appointed deputy minister in July 2024.

Her own travel cost R788,075 in the first period and R1.2m in the second, a total of R1.99m.

The reply gave the purpose of her travel in both periods, word for word, as ministry outreach programmes in various provinces, naming only Kimberley and Upington.

A household aide in her office travelled at a cost of R17,050 between July 2024 and March 2025, with the purpose listed as household support.

The reply did not list destinations, dates or a cost for each trip.

Instead, each person's costs were given as a single total for each period, set against a list of events.