Notorious health MEC gets new job
Benny Malakoane ‘did an excellent job’, says the Free State government — despite allegations of fraud and of hospitals reduced to crisis point
The ANC says the removal of the Free State’s controversial health MEC, B e n n y Ma l a k o a n e , o n Monday has “bogger-all” to do with health activists’ two-year public campaign to get him fired.
Malakoane has been moved to the portfolio of economic and small business development, tourism and environmental affairs, a position he has previously occupied, in a provincial cabinet reshuffle. He still faces several serious charges of fraud and corruption in a court case that has been postponed many times.
The charges relate to him and others allegedly receiving kickbacks worth R13-million for irregularly awarded contracts in the Matjhabeng local municipality in 2007-2008 when Malakoane was the municipal manager.
The health l obby group, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), has been advocating for his removal through its #FireBenny campaign, claiming that the provincial health system has “limped from crisis to crisis, with people who rely on it left traumatised by death and pain” under Malakoane’s reign.
In a press release, the TAC said it “acknowledges all the courageous whistle-blowers who have spoken out about the crisis in the public healthcare system in the province in recent years” for the role they played in achieving Malakoane’s removal.
But the ANC Free State spokesperson, Thabo Meeko, said the TAC’s statement was “definitely not based on the truth” and had “nothing, bogger-all” to do with the activists’ campaign.
“This was a political decision about the ANC’s senior leadership. Benny Malakoane knows the health department inside out and did an excellent job. We think he must do the same and assist us in the development of economic change for radical transformation.”
Section27, the social justice organisation and close partner of the TAC, responded to Meeko’s reaction with a tweet: “Yeah and pigs can fly!! We all know the truth!!!”
The TAC laid additional corruption charges against Malakoane in 2015 following a Bhekisisa story published in the Mail & Guardian in 2013, in which doctors in the Eastern Free State’s Dihlabeng Regional Hospital and Pekholong Hospital claimed Malakoane intervened to ensure an intensive care unit bed was specifically created for a patient with ANC connections at the cost of “ordinary patients”.
According to the TAC, a quarter of the province’s doctors left the province in 2015, “largely due to Malakoane’s mismanagement of the health system and victimisation of those who spoke out against it”.
In July 2014, the Free State health department’s financial management authority was transferred to the provincial treasury after it had racked up R700-million in debt.
This month, the TAC exposed unlawful stem-cell trials being conducted in the province, allegedly with the full knowledge of Malakoane. “Malakoane’s role in the stem-cell scandal … must be investigated and, if any wrongdoing on his part is found by the Medicines Control Council or the department of health, he must be charged,” the TAC said in its press release.
The Free State’s new MEC for health, Butana Komphela, is the province’s previous MEC for police, roads and transport.
“Honourable Komphela has been given a clear mandate: ‘Go and fix that department and continue Benny Malakoane’s good work’,” said Meeko. “We need the capacity of Benny Malakoane elsewhere, so he can help to drive [economic] change. We chose Komphela in his place because he drastically improved the police and roads department and has the capacity to deal with political groups such as the TAC and trade unions.”
The TAC said of Malakoane’s new position: “We are disappointed that someone with such a poor record of public service has again been appointed into a position of power, even though it is no longer in the healthcare system.”