Suspended Head of the Gauteng Health Department, Dr Barney Selebano, will be back at the Life Esidimeni arbitration hearings in Parktown, Johannesburg on Wednesday to face more questions about his role in the botched relocations that left 143 mentally-ill patients dead.
On Tuesday, Selebano told the hearing that the decision to terminate the long-standing contract with Life Esidimeni was taken to save costs due to pressure from the national Treasury.
He admitted that there was no system to keep track of what was happening at the NGOs.
This after he was asked why he did not know that more that 76 had died towards the end of the year, as he kept on referring to the 36 he had learnt of in July.
Justice Dikgang Moseneke said: “You had no mechanism to tell you that five people had died at Precious Angels, seven people at Siyabadinga. You had no such system that would be the tracking system.”
To which Selebano replied: “I agree there was no such.”
“Even on your number of 36 corpses, that should have got a senior administrator like you on the edge of his chair. Didn’t you go out – like who caused this, how did this happen, look at these deaths, who must account,” Justice Moseneke inquired.
