Sports Minister Gayton McKenzie, the leader of the Patriotic Alliance (PA), has made a bold pledge to donate his full salary to a foundation in the name of missing schoolgirl Joshlin Smith. This is not the first time McKenzie has publicly pledged his salaries to charity. In 1995, Nelson Mandela announced that he would donate a third of his presidential salary to the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund. In 2018, Cyril Ramaphosa followed suit, pledging half of his presidential salary to a children’s fund managed by the Nelson Mandela Foundation.
McKenzie's history of big promises is not new. When he became mayor of the Central Karoo district municipality in April 2022, he made headlines with the same pledge regarding his mayoral salary. However, the South African Communist Party (SACP) reported McKenzie to the Public Protector less than six months later for a raft of allegations, including the claim that he had misled the public about donating his salary to charity.
In response, McKenzie tweeted a table on August 31 2022 which he claimed showed the donations he had made to charity from his salary, ranging from a netball club sponsorship to a donation to the “first person to be in the top 30 of Miss SA from Central Karoo”. However, he did not provide any further evidence, such as bank statements, that these payments had been made.
Beaufort West community activist and outspoken McKenzie critic Brian Jooste confirmed that at least some of his claimed donations seemed legitimate, particularly those for netball and soccer sponsorships. However, Jooste expressed doubts about other McKenzie claims, such as his claim that he would sell the mayoral car and use the proceeds to buy an ambulance.
The evidence that McKenzie inflated claims made about his time as Central Karoo mayor is also supported by his claims about service delivery under his mayoral tenure.
Gayton McKenzie, the new South African sports minister, made headlines on 8 July when he promised his full ministerial salary to an NGO he said he would establish called the Joshlin Smith Foundation. He told News24 that the process is well under way and shall be finalized soon. The foundation will not be run by the Patriotic Alliance but will be independently managed and registered as a Section 18 non-profit organization.
On the same day, McKenzie promised his first ministerial salary to an art gallery in Kagiso, after visiting the gallery and being moved by its financial plight. He instructed lawyers to pay over his first salary to this gallery. In early August, McKenzie said he was donating his second salary to a motorsport event. In a video posted to Facebook by the National Motorsport Mzansi account, McKenzie was shown saying: “To show you how serious I am, to show you this is not just a politician speaking, the prize here today: I got my second salary today. They paid me R100,000. And within five minutes, I'm going to donate that R100,000 as prize money for the organizers who arranged this event. My whole salary will be paid in.”
Daily Maverick searched the Department of Social Development’s database of registered South African NPOs and Company records similarly produced no trace of the promised foundation. Daily Maverick approached PA spokesperson Steve Motale for clarification and received no response. A second attempt to clarify the issue was made by contacting another PA official, who will remain nameless. A third attempt via McKenzie’s ministerial spokesperson, Cassiday Rangata-Jacobs, finally bore fruit.
In the apparent absence of any appetite from McKenzie’s team to put this matter to bed for good by providing receipts, we decided to head for the source(s): the entities to which McKenzie claimed to have donated money since becoming a minister. The Backyard Art Gallery in Kagiso was the art project which had so touched McKenzie. Ismail Peck, the CEO of World of Motorsport ZA, had only glowing words for the new sports minister.
In summary, Mzansi: Gayton McKenzie has not yet registered his promised charity for missing children, but he does seem to be following through on his pledges to donate at least portions of his salary to deserving causes.
SOURCE: The Daily Maverick
