Western Cape Premier Alan Winde has been open with residents, and admitted that taxpayers paid the bill for his recent US trip.
However, his office has been less forthcoming about how much it cost.
That complicates matters for his political party the Democratic Alliance.
Just on Tuesday, labelled President Cyril Ramaphosa’s peace mission to Ukraine and Russia, a disgrace, and a waste of taxpayers’ money.
That matches well with DA’s leader John Steenhuisen’s comments that Ramaphosa must be held accountable for the money spent and his demand for the details of the cost involved so that the bulk can be categorised as fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
Winde’s trip was headlined as being done to show up for South Africa’s continued access to the AGOA agreement.
Provincial opposition parties say Winde completely overstepped his authority regarding international relations.
The ANC’s Cameron Dugmore wants detailed information about what he achieved and of course how much it cost.
The difficulty for Steenhuisen is that Winde’s office has so far emulated Ramaphosa’s and dodged questions about the cost, and not committed to a time frame to do so.
