R100,000 for a rug, R6,000 for a lamp, and other items on ministers’ shopping lists
The Sunday Times reports how ministers in South Africa’s government continue to splash out on luxury items for their homes, despite the economic climate and jobs crisis.
Public works officials have been ordered to appear in front of parliament’s standing committee on public accounts to explain some of the lavish items used to furniture ministerial homes.
One invoice, seen by the Sunday Times, includes a R100,800 dining room rug, R25,200 for a child’s bed headboard, four scatter cushions totalling R3,444, and R18,900 for a guest room chair.
Another document shows how a single room in a minister’s home in Pretoria has been furnished with a mahogany dining table (R84,000), 10 dining chairs (R157,000), R63,000 for a mahogany king-size bed, and R44,100 for two mahogany pedestals.
The department told parliament earlier this week that it had constructed braai areas at three houses in Cape Town worth R500,000, while also spending in excess of R30 million to buy five houses.
Read the full story in the Sunday Times.
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