I see the DA has now responded to our traveling civil servants and politicians wandering over to Germany to "learn". This story on Mweb gives good background.
"It is perfectly understandable that various technical members of the government need to gain expertise ahead of South Africa hosting the World Cup in 2010, but there is simply no need for politicians to accompany these delegations.

"Political leadership and specialised expertise are two different matters. One of them can be learnt in Germany; the other cannot.
Cynically, I hope our politicians do learn something from the German (and other countries') politicians that are bound to be loitering about. But my experience is that our guys tend to look at overseas models and practices so as to be able to ignore them.

More seriously, I think the response is a demonstration of how the DA sometimes shoots itself in the foot. I mean just the other day they were accusing government of not doing enough to get things going. Rather gather information that too many folk of no consequence are using the excuse to take the trip than start shooting at the hip.

Of course the civil servants had to give a few key politicians a ride to get the expenditure approved. The DA should have spent the effort on trying to get a few tickets for their own.

Or do you agree that politicians have no business in going?