DA calls to freeze spending and recover R500 million wasted on Anglo Ashanti hospital
23 September 2021
The DA welcomes the court order obtained by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) to freeze R7.9 million from two companies that were irregularly given tenders to refurbish the Anglo Ashanti Hospital for Covid-19 patients.
Further spending on this white elephant hospital in the far west rand should be frozen, and efforts made to recover a lot more of the R500 million that was spent on unlawful contracts for this project.
The hospital was supposed to have 175 ICU beds, but only 87 beds have been completed and there is no staff or equipment to provide high level care. Only a small number of low-level Covid-19 patients have been admitted there who could have been treated elsewhere.
According to the SIU, there was no approved budget for the refurbishments, which increased from an estimated R50 million to more than R500 million.