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Speaker 1: Action Essay criticizing the presidency over what Action Essay describes

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Speaker 1: as slow and inconsistent implementation of lifestyle audits for politicians

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Speaker 1: and senior government officials. Ethel Trollope, who is with Action

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Speaker 1: Essay and leads their parliamentary caucus, joins us now from Johannesburg. Ethel,

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Speaker 1: Good afternoon, Good afternoon, Jordan.

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Speaker 2: How are you.

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Speaker 1: I'm in reasonably decent health in yourself.

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Speaker 2: I'm good, Thank you, and good afternoon to your listeners.

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Speaker 1: Ethel. You've been trying for quite a while now to

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Speaker 1: get to grips with the progress, or perhaps more accurately

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Speaker 1: put lack of progress in the promised lifestyle audits for

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Speaker 1: senior government officials and politicians.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I must say I listened to your prelude to

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Speaker 2: our interview now about Christoph Ridley, the referee in the

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Speaker 2: in the game where the Storm has lost a semi

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Speaker 2: final or quarterfinal match, and I feel exactly the same

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Speaker 2: way about our president in this regard. He has promised

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Speaker 2: so much, so much about ridding us of corruption, holding

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Speaker 2: executive office bearers to account, subjecting them to lifestyle audits,

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Speaker 2: subjecting them to performance management, and my last two sets

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Speaker 2: of questions to the president recently were what has happened

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Speaker 2: to the lifestyle audits? When you're going to release the outcomes?

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Speaker 2: And when will you give us the performance management agreements

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Speaker 2: that you have with your biggest cabinet in the world.

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Speaker 2: And he basically said, we're busy with them. Now. That's

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Speaker 2: just not good enough. I mean, he's been the president

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Speaker 2: for nearly two full terms and still we have no

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Speaker 2: lifestyle audits of any of his executive members. And all

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Speaker 2: you've got to do is just watch TV and the

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Speaker 2: Madlunga Commission or listen to what's going on in the

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Speaker 2: ad hoc Committee, and you will see that there are

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Speaker 2: people in this country, administrators, officials, politicians and executive office

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Speaker 2: pairers who live way beyond their means invitably.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, look, Cera Ramaposa takes incredibly long to do

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Speaker 1: just about everything. I don't know how he manages to

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Speaker 1: fit three meals in a day, given how slowly he

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Speaker 1: must eat, given how slowly he does everything. So I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's no surprise, but don't make a promise or don't

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Speaker 1: make a commitment unless you're going to carry through on

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Speaker 1: that commitment.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with you, but it's too late to

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Speaker 2: say that he's made all the commitments. He's made all

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Speaker 2: the promises and it is delivered or none. So there

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Speaker 2: must be a political consequence to this in action. And

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Speaker 2: you know, the very perfect example would be to deal

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Speaker 2: with his deputy president who last year, when he was

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Speaker 2: asked to account for his accommodation where he lives in

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Speaker 2: Cape Town, he said in his declaration that the accommodation,

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Speaker 2: very very expensive, luxurious accommodation belongs to his children and

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Speaker 2: that he they let him stay there. This year in

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Speaker 2: the member's declaration statements, he said they are his buildings.

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Speaker 2: Now how did he afford them? How does he afford

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Speaker 2: to have multiple buildings of those values. We know how

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Speaker 2: much a deputy president gets paid, and he would never

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Speaker 2: be able to afford that. So these are simply questions

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Speaker 2: that drive us all mad as South Africans. That drives

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Speaker 2: me particularly mad because I've spent my most better part

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Speaker 2: of my life in public service in various capacities, and

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Speaker 2: I'm happy to open myself up to lifestyle audits. I've

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Speaker 2: never enriched myself in any way whatsoever. But we have

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Speaker 2: got people that we have to listen to and watch

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Speaker 2: every single day in Parliament and on televisions, who live

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Speaker 2: clearly above their means, drive around in the most ostentatious vehicles,

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Speaker 2: were the most ostentatious watches and clothing and footwear, and

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Speaker 2: we're supposed to just follow it. And Siramaforsa, the man

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Speaker 2: who promised so much, delivered so little, has done nothing

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Speaker 2: about it.

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Speaker 1: There has been some indication of the results of some

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Speaker 1: lifestyle audits of people within the presidencies fold and it's

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Speaker 1: quite disturbing that a significant number of people have been

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Speaker 1: referred for further investigation. I mean, that doesn't imply that

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Speaker 1: there are guilty of anything, but it perhaps points to

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Speaker 1: the problem you've just been outlining.

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Speaker 2: As yeah, John, and I think it's a very critical

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Speaker 2: observation that you make. There are reports, and we haven't

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Speaker 2: seen these reports, but there are reports that are very

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Speaker 2: high proportion of senior members in the presidency have been

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Speaker 2: through lifestyle audits and they've been found to be wanting

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Speaker 2: in their explanation for their lifestyles. Now, that for the

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Speaker 2: president should be the biggest red flag to say, if

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Speaker 2: this is happening in my department, how much more so

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Speaker 2: in all the other departments. With all the other ministers,

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Speaker 2: and bearing in mind we have the biggest cabinet I

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Speaker 2: think in the world. Certainly so if you include the

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Speaker 2: deputy ministers, and they are deputy ministers who I've been

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Speaker 2: in Parliament now for the last two years, my own

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Speaker 2: Deputy Minister of Monitoring and Evaluation. If I met them

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Speaker 2: in the lift, I wouldn't even recognize them, So I

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Speaker 2: don't know what they do, but they get big fat salaries,

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Speaker 2: and over and above that there's incriminating evidence that they're

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Speaker 2: still living beyond their means.

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Speaker 1: Oh well, don't stop this fight. Please atheltrollop action essay,

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Speaker 1: Parliamentary Leader