Gauteng Premier ducks question on untrue statement on health official’s resignation

20 October 2020

Gauteng Premier David Makhura has ducked my questions on why he did not correct the Gauteng Health Department’s untrue statement that Chief Financial Officer KabeloLehloenya resigned for “personal reasons” rather than because she was facing disciplinary action for the irregular award of PPE contracts.

In today’s virtual sitting of the Gauteng Legislature he replied to my questions on this issue by saying he would not say anything that would prejudice investigations and disciplinary actions in this matter.

According to the official timeline of events published by the provincial government, there was a PPE procurement audit on 28 April, and on 25 May the Premier signed a letter to the President requesting a SIU investigation.

Also, on 25 May, the then Head of Department MkhululiLukhele gave notice of precautionary suspension to Lehloenya, at which stage she gave notice of her resignation.

The Department announced that she had resigned for “personal reasons”, which was knowingly untrue as they knew the real reasons. Inexplicably, however, they allowed her to delay her resignation for three months so she would still be working until the end of August. How could she be allowed to stay on if she was being investigated for alleged corruption in the award of R2 billion PPE contracts?

The real reasons for her resignation only emerged after media exposure of further details of the PPE corruption.

The then Health MEC Bandile Masuku surely knew the real reasons for her resignation, and the Premier as well, but they failed to inform the public for unknown reasons.

Masuku’s failure to be transparent on the CFO’s resignation is more evidence that confirms the SIU’s finding that he failed to exercise the oversight to prevent the PPE corruption. Only later was her resignation rejected so that she would not escape disciplinary action.

This is a political failing that Makhura failed to address because he wants to rescue his Masuku who is his political ally even though the ANC’s provincial integrity commission also found that he failed to exercise the necessary oversight.

It is another reason why Masuku should not be reinstated as Health MEC even if the SIU finds he was not directly involved in the corruption.

Issued by Jack Bloom, DA Gauteng Shadow MEC for Health, 20 October 2020