Two-thirds of the police’s R36.3 million spending spree for the Police Day celebrations earlier this year was splurged on entertainment, corporate gear, and food and drinks.
From embroidered towels to squeeze bottles, draw-string backpacks, golf shirts and golf caps that were given to the 36 000 members who attended the day at Orlando Stadium, Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa has finally broken down the expenditure of the costly multimillion-rand event.
And now he has instituted an independent investigation into this spending. His spokesman, Zweli Mnisi, told The Star yesterday that preliminary findings would be presented “in due course”.
In written answers to the parliamentary portfolio committee on police in April, Mthethwa revealed that of the R36.3m:
lR6m was spent on air, bus and train transport;
lR501 491 was on accommodation;
lR44 574 on venue hire;
lR11.9m on entertainment;
lR12.2m on food and beverages; and
lR5.6m on corporate gear, advertising, promotional items and cleaning services.
He further broke down what some of the money in the corporate gear budget was spent on. It shows that top management of the police bought:
lSqueeze bottles for R498 201.60;
lEmbroidered towels for R719 640;
lDraw-string backpacks for just more than R1m;
lGolf caps for R943 920; and
lGolf shirts for R499 980.
Mthethwa was answering questions asked by DA police spokeswoman Dianne Kohler Barnard on March 25.
Yesterday, an outraged Kohler Barnard said it was absolutely fascinating how Mthethwa was spending R11m on entertainment when there were still police stations without running water.
“All along I have been suspicious of these massive expenses that they have hidden away. It’s the first time they have come clean, and look what we are finding,” said Kohler Barnard.
Earlier this year, after Kohler Barnard asked questions around the expenditure of Police Day celebrations over the past two years, Mthethwa revealed that the two Police Day celebrations had amounted to R66m. This year’s event, held on January 28 at Orlando Stadium in Soweto, amounted to R36.3m, while last year’s event in Bloemfontein cost R29.2m. Mthethwa said the costs for this year’s celebrations were incurred from the national Budget.
Kohler Barnard pointed out that Mthethwa had not specified which programmes this money had been taken out of. “Spending R12 million on entertainment is inexcusable. Did they resurrect Elvis Presley?” asked Kohler Barnard, “Even R12 million on food for a single day is inexcusable.”
The Star has seen documents of the quotes submitted for the provisioning of food packets for the day.
The breakfast box needed to have two Liquifruit juices, two chicken and cheese sandwiches, an apple, a banana, an energy bar, a packet of Tucs and a wet wipe.
The lunch box needed to have two Liquifruit fruit juices, two lightly buttered cheese rolls with two drumsticks, a chakalaka dip, a packet of biltong, chips, peanuts and raisins, a fruit bar and a wet wipe. The Star has seen quotes from six different companies for the provision of these two boxes.
Quotes seen by The Star of the breakfast and lunch boxes by six different companies vary from R34 to R65 a breakfast box to R55 to R88 for the lunch box. All six companies were approved, costing a total of R4.6m. This means that of the R12.2m spent on food and beverages, R7.6m went on beverages alone.
Kohler Barnard said she had been asking for a forensic audit into this spending for quite some time, so it was surprising that Mthethwa had come up with this only now.
However, Mnisi said the event planning, logistics, sourcing of transportation, booking of the venue, entertainment and so on were all operational functions managed by the department’s management and staff.
“The ministry provides the political leadership, and as such does not interfere in the day-to-day running of the department. As soon as the national Police Day celebrations expenditure breakdown was brought to the attention of the minister, he noted with concern some of the amounts that were spent.”
He said the ministry would await the investigation’s findings before commenting any further.
“As the ministry, we fully support the national Police Day’s objectives and purpose.
However, what we have always advocated for are justifiable and proper spending of taxpayers’ money on any event or programme,” Mnisi added.
National police commissioner General Bheki Cele’s spokeswoman, Nonkululeko Mbatha, did not respond to calls from The Star.