Minister of Small Business Development Lindiwe Zulu has been criticised by the DA after her department bought two new BMW 540s in December for herself and her then deputy, Nomathemba November, to the tune of more than R1.8 million.

DA MP Toby Chance said in a statement on Thursday that the party would lodge a complaint with public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane to investigate Zulu for “willfully misleading Parliament” on the purchase of cars.

On November 29, Chance said in an oral reply to a question he had posed to Zulu, she seemingly omitted that her department was in the process of buying new cars. He said has been informed in a written parliamentary response to a DA question that the luxury vehicles were purchased on December 20 last year under the authorisation of the department’s director-general.

Chance said the DA found it “unacceptable” that Zulu continued to spend millions of rand for her luxury and comfort while her department struggled to fulfil its mandate of helping small and medium businesses in the country.

He said that during a recent sitting of the portfolio committee on small business development, MPs expressed dissatisfaction with the department’s failure to understand its mandate and its poor attainment of performance targets.

“Minister Zulu’s failure to disclose a process that was already under way to purchase new cars by the department, while aware of its relevance to her oral reply in Parliament, was not only misleading but a possible violation of the Code of Ethics for Members of the Executive.

“The public protector must therefore launch an investigation in terms of section 2.3(a) of the Code of Ethics, which states that Members of the Executive may not ‘wilfully mislead the legislature to which they are accountable’. Minister Zulu may have knowingly refused to share information to enable Parliament to exercise its oversight function over her Department,” Chance said.

The DA has called on President Cyril Ramaphosa to collapse the department to prevent further waste of taxpayers’ money.

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