The Mail & Guardian's search for the elusive Ministerial Handbook -- that get-out-of-jail-free card for officials caught with one or more hands in the state cookie jar -- started with the Sunday Times exposé of the overspending of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Sicelo Shiceka since he took office.

You can now download a copy of the Ministerial Handbook HERE

According to the weekend paper Shiceka spent more than R1-million on a trip to Switzerland to visit a girlfriend in jail, flew family members around the country, and paid for stays at the exclusive One & Only hotel at the V&A Waterfront.

Shiceka insisted that much of the Sunday Times story was fabricated, but did justify spending R55 793 on a one-night stay at the One & Only, where he also put up his wife and a "father figure", claiming that "the Ministerial Handbook allows it".

In recent years the Ministerial Handbook has been held up as putting an official stamp of approval on everything from excessive spending on pimped-out ministerial cars to long stays at five-star hotels by ministers who turn their noses up at their official residences.

To see whether the handbook really allows for "father figures" to be paid for at the taxpayers' expense, the M&G approached the department of public service and administration for a copy.

This reporter was gobsmacked to be told that it was a "classified, confidential document" and that to see it we would have to jump through a series of bureaucratic hoops.

"If you're sending us questions then we can answer your questions. But if you want to see the document, then you need to fill out a PAIA request," departmental spokesperson Dumisani Nkwamba told us.

Source: http://mg.co.za/article/2011-04-15-the-elusive-ministerial-handbook/