The KwaZulu-Natal government spent over R8 million on 550 World

Cup tickets, premier Zweli Mkhize said on Wednesday.

"In total we spent R8,452,384 to buy 550 tickets that were

distributed to various stakeholders that assisted as hosts during

the programme," Mkhize said in a statement.

 

He was giving a report on the Fifa World Cup in KwaZulu-Natal to

the provincial executive council at the KwaZulu-Natal legislature

in Pietermaritzburg. During the World Cup the office of the premier was criticised for buying tickets for members of the provincial legislature.

 

The premier's office argued that buying these tickets was part

of a "marketing strategy" for the province. Mkhize said prior to the World Cup they had received an advisory  from the National Treasury on the buying of World Cup tickets. He said the advisory said any diversion of funds towards the purchase of World Cup tickets would be considered unauthorised and irregular expenditure.

 

The advisory also said heads of departments who initiated such

expenditure would be violating the Public Finance Management Act

and would be liable for the recovery of the relevant funds.

"Our government discussed and endorsed the letter. We then

instructed all our provincial departments and municipalities not to

purchase any tickets because we had developed a hosting plan."

Mkhize said they had already allocated funds for World Cup

activities.

 

"From the budget we had already allocated funds for 2010 World

Cup activities and the legislature approved our budget. Therefore

no diversion of funds has occurred." Except for the opening and closing matches, no MEC had received tickets from the province as they used tickets allocated by the Local Organising Committee.

"All MPLs and public servants who were assigned hosting tasks

were allocated on a roster, not out of choice," said Mkhize.

All documents had been submitted for a full audit by the Auditor

General's office.

 

Mkhize said all KwaZulu-Natal districts had hosted Public

Viewing Areas with a total attendance of 43,5734.

He said 824 small businesses and 792 service providers had

benefited, while 1414 provincial artists had performed.

"In the end, we are satisfied that this was money well spent? We

are now finalising programmes to follow up on the contacts and

initiatives we started," said Mkhize.