Premier warns corrupt officials

Gauteng premier David Makhura has lashed out those implicated in the province’s personal protective equipment (PPE) corruption scandals during his state of the province address yesterday.

Makhura said corruption allegations and irregularities pertaining to Covid-19 procurement and delays in the delivery of some health infrastructure revealed substantial governance weaknesses.

He said the irregular and corrupt practices exposed by the auditor-general and the Special Investigating Unit constitute a serious dent in the progress made in the past five years on clean governance and integrity.

Makhura also raised concerns about the financial position of municipalities during Covid-19 due to the loss of over R8.75 billion in revenue from April to July 2020 for municipalities.

He said these losses had negative implications for service delivery and affected the resilience of municipalities.

“This resulted in a decline in spending on Capex projects by 42% and a decline in cash collection due to suspended credit control measures. Several municipalities struggled to pay their creditors such as Eskom and Rand Water,” he said.

He also said provincial and national government was hard at work to implement some of the recommendations by the SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) at the Emfuleni municipality.

The SAHRC recently recommended the municipality be put under administration following damning findings against officials during the Vaal River sewage crisis.