Helen Zille and the art of saving money, not wasting it.

Helen Zille has repositioned the goalposts viz a viz her ongoing rivalry with the ANC. As Premier of the Western Cape she has led a sustained campaign to economise on spending of provincial resources and cut back spending on luxury vehicles and entertainment expenses.

Zille will travel around in a Toyota and and it will be tea and biscuits not meals at Five-star hotels when MEC’s make budgetary announcements. The actual figures saved are quite astronomical but the real impact is that she has walked the walk and not just talked the talk.

Not only are we currently trying to negotiate a recession but local and provincial governments have been notorious for spending money on non-essentials and this statement from the Western Cape is like throwing down the gauntlet to other provinces and saying, “Match this!”.

Some members of provincial government in other parts of the country are going to look a little stupid driving a vehicle that cost almost a million and then trying to explain why the budget for essential services like hospitals is not enough.

It will also be very interesting to see what certain sectors of the media make of this development and what Zwelinzima Vavi and Cosatu have to say as this kind of saving frees funds to use for upliftment programs and delivery of essential services to poor and informal settlements.

Cynicism from media who have heard the rhetoric before might just change to belief when results come out. It could just a similar story to Bafana Bafana at last playing soccer on a professional level.

Where I got the info from