Election of Mahlangu and Hlongwa shows moral bankruptcy of Gauteng ANC

24 July 2018

The re-election of scandal-plagued Qedani Mahlangu and Brian Hlongwa as members of the Gauteng ANC’s Provincial Executive Committee shows the moral bankruptcy of a party that protects its own at the expense of everyone else.

ANC members in Gauteng obviously don’t care about Mahlangu’s role in the horrendous deaths of 144 Esidimeni patients, nor the mounds of evidence that implicates Hlongwa in R1.2 billion corruption in the Gauteng Health Department (GHD).

It is a poor excuse for Premier David Makhura to say that the ANC’s toothless Integrity Committee will deal with Mahlangu and Hlongwa. This committee was supposed to take a decision on Hlongwa four years ago, and has not censured Mahlangu more than 18 months after the Esidimeni disaster.

It seems that Hlongwa continues to enjoy support because of money funnelled to the ANC by entities that had corrupt dealings with the GHD - at least R870 000 according to evidence in court documents.

According to the DA’s Hlongwa Monitor, it is now 33 days and he has still not been fired as ANC Chief Whip in the Gauteng Legislature, earning R1.5 million a year.

Makhura has also not responded to my call for the provincial government to force Mahlangu and senior officials to pay part of the R159 million Esidimeni arbitration settlement from their own pockets, which can be done in terms of the Apportionment of Damages Act.

Earlier this year, President Cyril Ramaphosa hugged Qedani Mahlangu at an ANC march in Soweto, and said she was “still a comrade”.

There is no “New Dawn” in Gauteng, just the same false promises and hypocrisy while corruption and cruelty to the vulnerable continues unabated.

Issued by Jack Bloom, DA Gauteng Shadow Health MEC, 24 July 2018