A better life for the few: the ministerial handbook uncovered
In April the Mail&Guardian was told that the Ministerial handbook is a classified document. This week on SACSIS.org.za, Dale McKinley of the Right2Know national working group writes a brilliant analysis of what’s in the handbook, and why it’s our right to know:
Most of us can surely well remember those times during childhood when we were caught eating something that we knew we shouldn’t and our immediate defence was to claim that mom or dad said we could. Well, that about sums up the contemporary behaviour of many of our highest political office bearers, only in their case it’s not the sweets meant for the guests but public monies and it’s not parents who are the rationalising crutch but the ministerial handbook. Yes, the little handbook that so many have heard about but have never seen, that senior politician’s ‘bible’ which one South African journalist aptly called, a “get-out-of-jail free card.”
Officially, according to the Department of Public Service and Administration, the handbook is ‘a classified document’ only accessible to the public through the use of the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA). Of course, this is an absolutely outrageous and untenuous position given that the handbook is, as its opening line states, a ‘guideline for benefits and privileges to which members and their families are entitled, in the execution of their duties’. Translated, what that really means is that the handbook is a specific type of public policy for a specific type of public official.
Since almost every senior politician including the President himself, has at one point or another over the last several years publicly cited the handbook to justify their expenditure of public monies and at times questionable individual business dealings, there can be no question of privatising its contents. As the public, we all have a right to know what rules and regulations govern the financial behaviour of our public officials and how they spend our public monies so that we can hold them accountable. It’s called democracy.
So what have they been hiding from us all these years? Importantly, the handbook’s first chapter clearly sets out what ministers cannot do. They cannot: “use their position or any information entrusted to them, to enrich themselves or improperly benefit any other person; expose themselves to any situation involving the risk of a conflict between their official responsibilities and their financial and/or personal interests; (and) make improper use of any allowance or payment properly made to them.” The importance here lies in the fact that these are the golden standards against which the actions of all ministers must be judged. If, as has been the case, the public itself is not aware of such applicable standards then the ability to assess and judge adherence to them becomes the sole preserve of the ministers’ boss (the President and/or Premiers) who themselves are also subject to the standards. That’s called despotism.
The rest of the handbook is given over to exhaustively detailing all of the ‘benefits and privileges’ to which our senior politicians are entitled. Not surprisingly, they read like a members guide to the most exclusive political club in the country. Leaving aside the 40%+ of our population who have no regular income, unlike those of us in South Africa who actually do have a formal job income and who diligently cough up increasing amounts of it to the tax authorities, the base salaries of our political illuminati are tax-free. They receive what the handbook calls an “inclusive remuneration package” which includes top-up provisions for all tax liabilities. Additionally, the package provides for a housing allowance equivalent to 10% of the base salary, a full medical aid deal, death benefits as well as disability and funeral cover.
Keep reading at SACSIS.org.za.
Want a copy of the Ministerial handbook? It’s right here.
