New information emerges about National Dialogue costs

Chairperson of Parliament’s Standing Committee on Appropriations and Build One South Africa (BOSA) leader Mmusi Maimane said that Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana has told him that the National Dialogue will cost taxpayers roughly R485 million.

According to the Presidency, the National Dialogue will host over 13,400 ward dialogues and 50,000 citizen-led engagements over the next year to define a vision for the country over the next three decades.

During a press briefing on Thursday, Maimane said he had received a written response from the Minister confirming the amount.

“Yesterday, Minister Godongwana wrote to me extensively about what the national dialogue would effectively cost,” Maimane said.

“In essence, he commits that South Africa will spend an estimated R485 million on the National Dialogue, which will come out of the contingency reserve fund.”

Newsday has reached out to the Presidency to confirm this figure but did not receive comment by publication. This will be added once received.

Maiamane argued that this is a significant amount to take from the fiscus and could have necessitated a budget vote.

“To put it into context, the presidency’s budget vote is below a billion rand. So when you say you will spend half a billion rand, it could be a vote in itself,” he said.

Maimane added that the amount Godongwana said will be spent on the National Dialogue could employ 2,972 teachers on a full year’s salary or feed 497,000 learners for a 200-day school year.

The BOSA leader said that the money also could have been used to build just over 2,400 RDP houses or provide 48,500 young people with scholarships.

However, the Finance Minister’s figure reported by Maimane differs significantly from previously reported amounts.

Backlash arose when it was first announced that the process would cost R700 million.

Then, in mid-August, Anzio Jacobs, a National Convention Planning Committee member, told SABC’s Face the Nation that this had been revised to R450 million.

Jacobs said the state would contribute 60% of the funds needed to fund the dialogue, which would come from the Department of Planning, Monitoring, and Evaluation (DPME)..

“R270 million will have to come out of the fiscus, and indeed it will come out of DPME, which is responsible for the monitoring and planning of development in South Africa,” he told the SABC.

“The intention is to ask DPME to look at their development objectives, and how it can leverage its existing plan to support the dialogues.”

However, he said that the Minister of Planning, Monitoring, and Evaluation, Maropene Ramokgopa, had yet to confirm that the money is available.

Jacobs added that the National Convention, which kicked off the National Dialogue process on 15 August, cost R20 million.

“The National Convention is sitting at a cost of R20 million. One thousand people are coming in from all nine provinces, so this money is largely being spent on the transportation of the delegation coming to the conference,” said Jacobs.

Several groups withdraw support

Despite the government’s claim that the National Dialogue has received overwhelming interest, with over 737 organisations registering to participate, several major groups have withdrawn.

These include two parties in the Government of National Unity (GNU) and five legacy foundations.

The first group to announce its withdrawal was the Democratic Alliance (DA), which is the second-largest party in the GNU.

At the time, the only publicised figure for the National Dialogue’s cost was R700 million, with the DA citing this as part of the reason for withdrawal. 

It also refused to participate until the African National Congress (ANC) removed several corruption-accused ministers from their positions. 

“We will also actively mobilise against the National Dialogue to stop this obscene waste of R700 million,” DA leader John Steenhuisen said in June.

“[This starts] with a call on civil society to join us in demanding that the National Dialogue not proceed until President Ramaphosa fires ANC-corruption accused and other delinquents from the executive.”

Then, in late July, the Steve Biko, Thabo Mbeki, Chief Albert Luthuli, Desmond and Leah Tutu, and FW de Klerk foundations announced in a joint statement that they would withdraw from the National Dialogue.

The foundations said the decision does not stem from apathy or lack of engagement, but from the neglect of the National Dialogue’s fundamental principles.

“The National Dialogue is a generational opportunity to reconnect the people of South Africa to each other and to the democratic project,” the foundations said.

“But we cannot pursue that goal by cutting corners, centralising power, or rushing the process.”

Most recently, the Freedom Front Plus (FF+) announced it would be withdrawing from the process because the ANC made “it impossible to participate.”

FF+ leader Dr Corné Mulder, whose party is part of the governing coalition, said that while the party supports dialogue, the ANC, as the largest party in the GNU, “is not ready to have a genuine, reasoned and solution-oriented dialogue.”

READ: National Dialogue is an admission by the ANC that it has no solutions – Moeletsi Mbeki