{"id":27107,"date":"2012-11-22T13:59:12","date_gmt":"2012-11-22T11:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=27107"},"modified":"2012-11-22T14:40:19","modified_gmt":"2012-11-22T12:40:19","slug":"da-bemoans-planned-usaasa-christmas-splurge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/27107\/da-bemoans-planned-usaasa-christmas-splurge\/","title":{"rendered":"DA bemoans planned Usaasa Christmas splurge"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Universal Service and Access Agency of South Africa (Usaasa<\/a>), which reports to the Department of Communications<\/a>, plans to spend R1,408 per person on a Christmas function. This is according to\u00a0DA<\/a> shadow Minister of Communications,\u00a0Marian Shinn<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This was confirmed by Communications Minister Dina Pule<\/a> in reply to a parliamentary question asking for details of planned spending on Christmas parties in her ministry, department and the entities reporting to it, Shinn said in a statement on Thursday (22 November).<\/p>\n

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa<\/a>), the\u00a0regulator for the South African communications sector, planned to spend R862 per person; Sentech<\/a> R363; the SABC<\/a> R254; and the department R660, according to the DA.<\/p>\n

The SABC\u2019s planned R926,060 party still needed approval by the group\u2019s executive management, Shinn said.<\/p>\n

Usassa intends spending R100,000 on Christmas entertainment for 64 staff and seven board members, the DA claimed.<\/p>\n

In a statement ,the opposition party said that the Minister\u2019s reply claims the expense is justified \u201cto alleviate pressures undertaken by staff in this year and to appreciate staff for the co-operation and flexibility shown during the forensic,\u201d (sic). This sentence in the Minister\u2019s reply is incomplete, the DA said.<\/p>\n

“The pressure, I assume the Minister alludes to, is the entity\u2019s participation in the forensic audit, nearing completion, into the financial maladministration that led to the suspension of Usassa\u2019s top management last year and the non-executive directors of the board being released from their responsibilities,” Shinn said.<\/p>\n

The DA noted that Usassa\u00a0is under executive caretaker management and was without a board until September. The entity has been criticised by the parliamentary portfolio committee on communications for failing to meet 91% of its targets in 2010\/11, and for excessive spending on management salaries and bonuses while it was not functioning.<\/p>\n

Its first quarter expenditure for 2012\/13 is 82% under target.<\/p>\n

“I will write to Minister Pule to request that Usassa\u00a0exercise restraint in using the public purse to reward well-paid public servants who have had very little success in their endeavours this year,” Shinn said.<\/p>\n

Related article<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pule appoints new Postbank, Usaasa boards<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The minister, the shoes and the missing millions<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Pule suffers from \u201cintegrity deficit\u201d: DA<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Dina Pule cleared of Indaba wrongdoing<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

How not to blow R102 million<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Usaasa plans to spend R1,408 per person on a Christmas function according to claims made by the DA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":27121,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[25,1083,36,2093,667,4014],"class_list":["post-27107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-telecommunications","tag-active","tag-dina-pule","tag-icasa","tag-marian-shinn","tag-sabc","tag-usaasa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27107","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=27107"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27124,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27107\/revisions\/27124"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}