Business Unity South Africa (BUSA) says it’s very worried about the claims of corruption relating to the procurement of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).
It says it will have zero tolerance for any of its members caught up in this scandal.
This after reports of PPE tenders being awarded to numerous African National Congress (ANC) bigwigs and their family members.
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Spokesperson Khusela Diko, Gauteng Health MEC Bandile Masuku and two sons of ANC Secretary-General Ace Magashule are among those alleged to have benefited from the tenders.
BUSA CEO Cas Coovadia says this is totally unacceptable.
“What we’re saying is that government needs to put resources behind the criminal justice system to investigate these things properly and do so with speed and with more capacity to bring cases to court. We need to identify those businesses in the private sector that are involved and we need to treat them just as harshly as we ask government to treat government people.”
Top officials dismiss corruption claims
Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize has refuted claims of him owning a PPE manufacturing company, terming this as fake news.
The Health Department has since clarified that the Minister has no involvement in the manufacturing of PPEs, nor does he own a company to that effect.
The Gauteng government says the allegations are a smear campaign aimed to turn attention away from those who benefitted from PPE corruption, as stated in the tweet below:
Gauteng Premier @David_Makhura dismisses fake news about the involvement of his family in PPE procurement pic.twitter.com/pFJzq8IhTi
— GautengGov (@GautengProvince) August 10, 2020
Calls for probe into PPE corruption
Finance Minister Tito Mboweni has since urged law enforcement agencies to take stringent measures against companies alleged to be involved in widespread corruption in the rewarding of PPE tenders:
