NEWS ANALYSIS: Official travel expenses beg the question

Something for President Cyril Ramaphosa to think about in 2026 is the number of overseas trips by his ministers and deputy ministers — last year ministers their deputies submitted a combined 720 requests for international travel.

In a written reply to a question by Build One South Africa leader Mmusi Maimane in October 2025, the Presidency said ministers lodged 441 requests for travel abroad and deputy ministers 279 requests between July 2024 and October 2025.

Ministerial requests peaked at 39 in May 2025 and 37 in April 2025, while requests by deputy ministers were the highest in May and June 2025 at 31 and 29, respectively. The lowest volumes were recorded in December 2024, when ministers submitted 11 requests and deputy ministers seven.

International travel has become a recurring matter of debate in the seventh administration. Opposition parties and parliamentary committees have questioned the necessity and amount of overseas travel, especially given the constrained public finances.

Written replies sourced by ActionSA indicate that the cumulative cost of ministerial and deputy ministerial travel since July 2024 is R299,249,202, with human settlements (R27.61m), international relations & co-operation (R23.75m), and defence & military veterans (R20.19m) accounting for the highest reported expenditures. Not all departments have responded to ActionSA’s questions, meaning the disclosed figures are only a partial picture of the total cost.

SA’s under fiscal pressure

Besides the amount of travel, the issue is whether the taxpaying public receives value for money from these engagements. That question has sharpened as travel costs intersect with two realities: first, the executive’s entitlements often embed more expensive choices as the default, including business class travel on long-haul routes, accommodation and associated benefits; and, second, South Africa is operating under acute fiscal pressure and persistent delivery failures in key services. In that context, the scrutiny is less about the legitimacy of international engagement in principle, and more about the amount, prioritisation and demonstrable returns.

Two recent examples illustrate how the value-for-money debate is now being argued in the open. Communications minister Solly Malatsi travelled to New York in connection with UN business on digital governance and inclusion. On December 7 2025, he addressed the UN General Assembly on the continuation of the World Summit on the Information Society framework beyond 2025, linking this to closing digital divides, addressing affordability, and expanding digital skills. The WSIS+20 review process was scheduled at the UN headquarters in New York for mid-December 2025, with preparatory processes framed as shaping future global digital governance priorities. In that sense, the international policy space Malatsi is operating in is real and consequential, influencing norms, co-operation, and funding discussions.

The domestic value-for-money test, however, is whether that agenda translates into measurable improvements in South Africa — particularly in public education and basic connectivity, where the digital divide is not an abstraction.

The domestic value-for-money test, however, is whether that agenda translates into measurable improvements in South Africa — particularly in public education and basic connectivity, where the digital divide is not an abstraction. The government told MPs in September 2025 that more than 16,000 public schools remain offline and that the broader school connectivity project is “not anywhere near” completion. The same briefing recorded that provinces have spent more than R7bn of their equitable share over the past three years on ICT devices, connectivity, and teacher training; that 545,938 learner devices and 30,818 teacher devices were procured between 2022 and 2024; and that the estimated cost of delivering on the earlier “tablets for learners” commitment stood at R30.6bn — funding the state does not have.

Given those those figures, a ministerial appearance at the UN to discuss digital inclusion invites a specific, quantifiable question: what did South Africa secure that accelerates the rollout to the 16,033 schools that remain offline, reduces the unit cost of connectivity, or unlocks new financing or implementation capacity? Without a clear public record of follow through, the risk is that global advocacy on digital inclusion becomes disconnected from the material constraints facing learners and schools at home.

That question becomes all the more pressing when set against the instability within Malatsi’s domestic mandate. The South African Post Office remains under business rescue, and in September 2025 parliament’s communications committee chair warned that almost R250m had been paid to the business rescue team without a viable turnaround plan having been presented. That was accompanied by concerns about the Post Bank’s termination of its agreement with the South African Social Security Agency to process social grant payments.

That does not mean South Africa should withdraw from multilateral digital diplomacy, but that international travel is easiest to defend when paired with visible outcomes and progress on urgent domestic failures.

A similar debate is playing out in the sport, arts & culture portfolio, but with unusually granular cost details already in the public domain. The department spent R6.6m on international travel between July 2024 and March 2025. The reporting states that minister Gayton McKenzie’s personal travel totalled R2.5m for 11 international trips, the deputy minister’s trips cost R1.2m, and support staff accompanying them accounted for a further R2.9m. The most expensive trip — the Paris Olympics in July 2024 — cost R783,252, including flights, transport and accommodation, while R164,556 was spent on a planned trip to Burkina Faso that failed to materialise.

As with communications, the domestic benchmark matters. The sport, arts and culture sector faces long-standing funding constraints, deteriorating community sporting facilities, limited access to safe recreational spaces and chronic underinvestment in grassroots development. Arts organisations continue to report funding uncertainty and delayed disbursements, while many athletes rely on personal or private sponsorship to compete internationally.

Against that backdrop, the justification for frequent, high-cost international travel turns on whether those engagements materially expand funding pipelines, unlock sustainable partnerships, or translate into improved access and support at community and grassroots level.

Without that assessment, premium travel risks becoming a governance issue rather than an administrative one.

That level of disclosure makes the value-for-money test unavoidable. When international travel includes business-class flights, hotel costs and sizeable staff components, the public standard cannot remain a generic assurance that travel is “work”. It must shift to outcomes: what did the trip deliver, and could the same objective have been achieved through a cheaper method — say, smaller delegations, shorter stays, alternative routing, or representation by officials already stationed abroad? Without that assessment, premium travel risks becoming a governance issue rather than an administrative one.

The opportunity-cost argument does not rest on the claim that reduced travel would “solve” structural problems. Rather, it is about proportionality and proof. In an environment of fiscal constraint and visible delivery gaps, the burden of justification should shift: if ministers and deputies are travelling frequently — and at high costs — the public should routinely see corresponding gains, whether in investment commitments, partnerships, or measurable delivery improvements.

The debate whether ministers should fly business class is ultimately secondary to whether the state can demonstrate that travel produces concrete, defensible public value — especially while thousands of schools remain offline and key public entities continue to falter.