TOM EATON | No wonder Mkhwebane ‘can’t live’ on R100k per month

Former public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane says she can’t survive on R100,000 per month as a MP for the EFF, and I for one believe her.

I understand this makes me part of a very small minority: at the time of writing on Thursday afternoon, a poll on TimesLIVE suggested roughly 94% of readers thought Mkhwebane was either lying about her penury or was being profligate in her spending.

Still, when I look back at the still-smoking crater that was Mkhwebane’s stint as public protector, with its 37 lost cases or the R147m in legal fees all paid for by you and me in order to achieve, er, something, I just don’t see someone who understands the basics of budgeting.

Of course, joining the EFF to champion its economic plan — the total and almost instantaneous collapse of South Africa’s economy — requires a fairly tangential relationship with financial reality in the first place.

To pay the worst people in parliament R1.2m, year after year, truly is disgusting

But Mkhwebane does seem particularly special. After all, if you have been found guilty of misconduct and incompetence by a parliamentary committee, becoming the first head of a chapter 9 institution to be removed from their post in South Africa, and you still believe you are entitled to your R10m golden handshake, then you are so out of touch with basic realities that it is entirely possible you genuinely don’t know how to live on R100,000 per month.

She’s also not the first MP to complain about her salary, or even the first MP from her party. Back in 2020 it was Godrich Gardee denouncing his R1.2m pay package as “disgusting” — and that was before Covid-19-induced inflation kicked off. The pittance Gardee was getting in 2020 is worth about R1.4m in today’s money, and if he couldn’t survive on it then, how on earth can we expect Mkhwebane to survive on so much less?

Besides, shouldn’t we cut her a little bit of slack? I mean, this is someone who almost single-handedly redistributed R147m from the working poor to lawyers, thereby contributing far more to the luxury economy than you or I ever will. Sure, we’re all slowly getting poorer, but Range Rover dealers and estate agents in Mauritius need to eat too, you know.

Yes, I can definitely believe that Mkhwebane believes she can’t live on R100,000 per month. But while it’s fun to point and laugh, I would offer a word of caution, because sometimes our MPs genuinely are underpaid. Not Mkhwebane, of course, or any of the craven, useful idiots who squat in the backbenches, doing nothing but sucking air and rubber-stamping the collapse of South Africa. To pay the worst people in parliament R1.2m, year after year, truly is disgusting.

There are, however, others: diligent, committed lawmakers doing the job of government or opposition politics to the best of their abilities, attending committee meetings, talking to the voters, wrestling with complex issues. For these people, most of whom could be pulling in five or 10 times as much in the corporate sector, R1.2m a year is a shamefully meagre reward.

So the next time we are asked whether MPs are entitled whiners or hard-pressed civil servants, perhaps our first answer should be: it depends.