#MakhuraPPE: Premier Makhura must be politically accountable for the vast PPE corruption in Gauteng

30 January 2022

Gauteng Premier David Makhura must be held politically accountable for the massive looting of taxpayer’s money meant for the procurement of personal protective equipment (PPE) and failing to act decisively against the implicated officials across all the departments in the province.

The damning SIU report on PPE corruption has exposed the rotten corruption within the Gauteng government departments. Gauteng has the largest amount of money wasted on corruption, all of which happened under the watch of the Premier who is still trying to vindicate himself while forgetting that he has a Constitutional responsibility to fight corruption in this province.

According to the SIU report, the Gauteng Department of Education irregularly awarded contracts to the value of R427 686 242.29 to 270 service providers for decontamination of Gauteng schools. The appointment process did not follow the procurement on an emergency delegation; the department did not obtain three quotes from service providers as listed on the central supplier database, and Supply Chain Management (SCM) was not involved in the sourcing and appointment of the service providers. The officials involved contravened Section 217(1) of the Constitution as the procurement processes were not fair, equitable, transparent, competitive, and cost-effective.

The same applies to the PPE contracts that were awarded to the service providers by the Department of Health. The service providers were not registered to supply PPE, were not PPE manufacturers and were not registered with the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA). The quality of the goods and services delivered by most of the service providers were of poor quality and substandard.

The report also states that out of 87 service providers that were awarded PPE contracts by the Gauteng Department of Health that have been investigated thus far, only 16 service providers has their cases closed because the SIU investigation found no evidence in support of the allegation that the SCM process may have been irregular while 71 have been implicated in corruption.

This indicates that officials and the service providers whose cases were not closed took advantage of the plight of our people who are in desperate need of protection against the Covid-19 pandemic to enrich themselves. While all this was happening Premier Makhura did nothing in his capacity to conduct monitoring and oversight of all the departments particularly the Department of Health which was heavily hit by the pandemic.

Many department senior officials have been implicated in the PPE corruption while a handful of them have been dismissed and some have resigned thereby escaping accountability. The likes of Professor Mkhululi Lukhele, Acting Head of the Gauteng Department of Health; Ms Kabelo Lehloenya, who was the Chief Financial Officer and Mr A Gwabeni, who was Deputy Director for Human Resources for the Department of Health have been implicated and have resigned from the department.

We demand that Premier Makhura act against all the senior officials that have been implicated in this report even though they have resigned from their departments. All those implicated must be dealt with accordingly, criminal charges must be laid against them and those that have illegally benefited must pay back every cent to the state coffers. The companies that have been implicated in this corruption must be blacklisted and penalties imposed for companies that have provided substandard supplies and have made illegal excessive profits on PPE resources.

Additionally, Premier Makhura must provide a progress report with regards to disciplinary hearings against the Department of Education senior officials implicated in the PPE corruption which started on 09 November 2021. The proceedings were ongoing and postponed to early 2022.

Premier Makhura must also be held politically accountable for failing on his oversight duties to ensure that PPE funds are spent wisely for the benefit of the Gauteng residents. 

We will be using all mechanisms at the legislature to ensure that Premier Makhura accounts for this PPE corruption.

Issued by Solly Msimanga, DA Gauteng Leader of the Opposition, 30 January 2022