President Ramaphosa must sanction Minister De Lille for gross negligence
9 August 2020
The Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure, Patricia de Lille, has repeatedly failed to take responsibility to ensure prudent management of public funds regarding the controversial Beitbridge “washing line”.
As such, the Democratic Alliance (DA) will ask President Cyril Ramaphosa, as part of consequence management for impropriety by members of his Cabinet on Covid-19 procurement, to sanction Minister De Lille for gross negligence in the exercise of her responsibilities.
The Minister revealed that a report regarding an investigation into the repair and replacement of the Beitbridge border fence, according to her, cleared her of any impropriety and found no evidence that she benefited from this project.
This is the same project that cost the taxpayers more than R37 million and resulted in a poorly constructed fence that would serve as little deterrent to anyone wishing to cross the border illegally.
Furthermore, in Parliamentary Questions asked in May this year, De Lille dodged responsibility by saying her "role was limited to issuing a directive for the emergency securing of the South African border".
She then contradicted herself in the very same question by acknowledging that she "received regular updates on the construction until completion". If this was the case, why did she not react to the red flags sooner?
Minister De Lille said in a statement regarding the report, “At all times, the cost of the project communicated to me was in the region of R37.1 million. It was only much later that officials informed me of the additional cost of just over R3.2 million for the Principal Agent for professional services and project management which led to the actual total projected spend being just over R40.4 million.”
What the report does not seem to do, is absolve the Minister of her responsibility.
What Minister De Lille seems yet to realise is that the buck stops with her. It is her job to ensure that projects undertaken by her Department are free of graft and corruption. It is her job to scrutinise the projects undertaken by her Department – especially one as important as the restoration of the Beitbridge border fence.
The DA has raised several questions around the project on numerous occasions, either through parliamentary questions or portfolio committee meetings.
We have asked:
What are the specifications regarding the repair and replacement of the Beitbridge border fence? Was is designed by an engineer and did an engineer sign off on the project? The Minister assured us that an engineer had indeed signed off on the project.
Were the product and equipment used in the repair and replacement of the border fence off-the-shelf from a supplier, or were they specifically engineered? The Minister replied that the products were off-the-shelf, which raised questions regarding the prices for the procurement of the supplies already established in 2016 and which were already exorbitant back then.
In all answers and in committee the Minister keeps saying the normal procurement procedures and processes were amended due to the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic and the proclamation of the state of disaster. However, her staff already initiated the repair and replacement project in January of this year.
The Minister is getting caught in a web of her own making and must face the consequences of her own mismanagement. The DA will not stop fighting to root out all rot in Government, including De Lille's part in it.
Issued by Samantha Graham-Maré, DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure, 9 August 2020
