LETTER: Rot in Gauteng governance put off DA

The depth of the rot in Gauteng, where ANC provincial level state capture has been off the scale, gives an insight into the work to be done to clean up governance (“After the euphoria, a dose of GNU reality settles in for the markets”, July 4).

Let us all hope national director of public prosecutions Shamila Batohi is on top of things and that those in the dock for the Babita Deokaran cold-blooded hitman murder are properly held to account and that this inquiry, together with the enormous fraud at Tembisa Hospital, leads to the speedy arrest of those high up in government who are responsible.

Given the stench, it is hardly surprising that the DA refused the Gauteng ANC’s token offerings, the more so because it was in large part the diligent work done by the DA’s Jack Bloom that first shone a light on this cesspit, which has been so since the days of Thamsanqa Brian Hlongwa 15 years ago.

In March 2017 the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) completed its investigation and handed a report to the incumbent president, Jacob Zuma, who did not publish the findings until obliged to by a Promotion of Access to Information Act request by nonprofit organisation Section27 in 2018.

The investigation covered the 2006-14 period when Hlongwa was health MEC, and claimed to have uncovered more than R1.2bn in corruption in the Gauteng health department.

In particular, the SIU claimed that 3P Consulting, a private company headed by Hlongwa’s friend Richard Payne, was granted state contracts that had been awarded irregularly and at inflated prices.

The SIU referred the matter to the National Prosecuting Authority and the Treatment Action Campaign called for Hlongwa to be prosecuted.

Jon Quirk
Via BusinessLIVE

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