Gauteng premier David Makhura says it’s evident that some officials in the provincial government are determined to continue looting taxpayers’ money.
Makhura’s statement comes as Gauteng police launch a manhunt for suspects in the gunning down of a provincial Health Department official outside her Johannesburg home on Monday.
The Special Investigating Unit says Babita Deokaran, who was the department’s chief director of financial accounting was a witness in one of the unit’s investigations into corruption in the awarding of tenders for personal protective equipment.
Deokaran’s funeral will take place in Phoenix, Durban on Thursday.
Makhura explains what harm corruption has caused to law-abiding South Africans.
“This issue has broken the spirit of many upright government officials in the Department of Health who were on the right side of the law all the time. But also in the provincial government, this is the second official who gets shot in circumstances we suspect have to do with those who want to extract, who want to loot,” says Makhura.
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Charges relating to financial misconduct regarding the awarding of PPE contracts in the City of Johannesburg, are expected to be served against two senior managers of the city’s property management entity.
The SIU found irregularities in the awarding of contracts to four companies which had been appointed by the Johannesburg Property Company to render emergency deep cleaning and sanitizing services at the Joburg Metro Centre and taxi ranks last year.
The irregular procurement is said to have cost the city of Johannesburg over R18 million in fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
SIU spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago says, “We recommended that they need to be disciplined and we sent that referral to the board. The second thing that we did was to refer the criminal issues. We found some criminality in the process and we referred that to the NPA already. We are in the process of setting aside those contracts with the intention to recover the money. And lastly, we have made a referral to Competition Commission to deal with the issue of competitiveness of these companies that we involved.”
