Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini is again under scrutiny after it was revealed that her department spent in excess of R500,000 on a trip to the United States at the end of June.<\/p>\n
Business Day<\/a> reported that in a written reply to a question in Parliament on Friday, Dlamini said that her department forked out R547,413 for a five-person delegation led by the minister to attend the annual Rainbow Push Coalition conference, in Chicago.<\/p>\n The minister said in her reply that her delegation was booked into the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place, the location of the five-day conference.<\/p>\n In the 2014\/2015 financial year Dlamini and her support staff spent R1.6 million on four separate trips to New York, with the overall overseas bill amounting to R12 million.<\/p>\n Earlier this month, the Department of Social Development\u2019s 2015\/16 annual report revealed that travel and subsistence expenses for the year was 12% higher at R121.5 million, against a budget of R98.6 million, in the previous financial year.<\/p>\n Dlamini caused a stir in the middle of the year when it was alleged that she stayed at the luxurious Oyster Box in Umhlanga at a cost of R11,000 per night. The Democratic Alliance alleged that Dlamini had booked herself into the hotel on more than one occasion.<\/p>\n And in May, the minister stated that social grant beneficiaries should be able to live on R753 per month to buy \u201cadequate food as well as additional non-food items\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cOyster Box\u201d minister\u2019s travel costs back in the spotlight<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Minister who said South Africans can survive on R753, accused of R11,000 <\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n luxury hotel room splurge<\/strong><\/a> Minister says South Africans can survive on R753 a month<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini is again under scrutiny after it was revealed that her department spent in excess of R500,000 on a trip to the United States.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":139081,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-141693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141693"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":141747,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141693\/revisions\/141747"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}More on Bathabile Dlamini<\/h3>\n
Minister won\u2019t comment on R11,000 hotel splurge<\/strong><\/a><\/h3>\n