The DA has slammed the KZN premier’s office for sponsoring a recent business breakfast for the Gupta-owned The New Age.
|||Durban - The DA has slammed the KwaZulu-Natal premier’s office for sponsoring a recent business breakfast for the Gupta-owned newspaper, The New Age.
“It appears the premier spent an excessive amount of taxpayers’ money,” the leader of the DA in the KwaZulu-Natal legislature, Sizwe Mchunu, said on Tuesday.
In a response to questions submitted by the DA, Parliament said the KwaZulu-Natal government - through the Office of the Premier - had contributed R130 000 to costs relating to the venue and equipment hire as well as catering for the breakfast, which was held at Sibaya Casino and Entertainment World, north of Durban, last month.
Mchunu was advised that the upmarket casino was the only available venue, but said this “excuse” warranted further explanation.
The breakfast was attended by ANC government officials including legislature Speaker Peggy Nkonyeni and her deputy Mtholephi Mthimkhulu.
“Invitations were not extended to other members of the legislature,” said Mchunu.
In January, DA leader Helen Zille withdrew from a New Age business breakfast that she had planned to address. This was after she discovered that state-owned enterprises Transnet and Eskom had used millions of rand in public funds to sponsor this and other New Age events.
“It is not acceptable or defensible for public money to be used to bankroll a privately owned newspaper,” Zille was quoted as saying at the time.
The Mercury