Cabinet ministers and their deputies, who each earn up to R2.4m a year and are tasked with driving the government’s user-pay principle, are failing to keep up with relatively cheap rentals for their lavish ministerial homes.

The ministers owe the state a combined R1.3m in outstanding rental payments for state-subsidised houses, according to public works minister Patricia de Lille.

Presenting the medium-term budget policy statement in October, finance minister Tito Mboweni emphasised the need for South Africans to pay for services rendered. The ANC NEC also resolved to embark on a mass campaign to encourage communities to pay for services. However, the government and the ANC’s efforts could be stillborn as the ministers, most of whom are ANC NEC members, are culprits of non-payment themselves.

Rent for ministerial houses is heavily subsidised and costs about R1,200 a month. Cabinet ministers receive an annual salary of about R2.4m, while deputy ministers earn close to R2m a year. However, the well-paid former and current ministers and their deputies are not paying up. De Lille revealed in parliament that 43 current and former members of cabinet and their deputies had not paid their rent on time and owed the state R1.3m.

“The department of public works and infrastructure has informed me there are 43 ministers, who are past and returning members of [government], who are currently in arrears with their payments,” De Lille said in a response to a question from the DA. She said letters of demand for payment had been sent to the ministers.

“Some have instituted stop-order payment and we are following up on others. If arrangements are not made and payments have not been received, the account will be handed over to the state attorney for debt collection,” De Lille said. She did not reveal the names of the ministers and deputy ministers in arrears.

Earlier in 2019, De Lille’s predecessor, Thulas Nxesi, said the challenge with collecting rental income for ministerial residences was a “systemic one”. He said the major issue was that departments had failed to set up stop orders from ministers and deputy ministers’ monthly income. Nxesi said at the time the ministers were largely not to blame.