Right2know Gauteng to picket against Covid-19 corruption!
Image: www.health24.com
Tomorrow, 02 October 2020, Right2know Gauteng will host a peaceful picket with a strong message to the department of health against Covid-19 corruption and accountability.
The government has spent more than R10-billion on procuring personal protective equipment (PPE) to protect especially frontline healthcare workers. Many of them got infected and died due to the absence of this necessary equipment. It has been reported that politicians and connected tenderpreneurs exaggerated the prices of PPE and thereby becoming overnight millionaires.
All this happened while most community healthcare workers were not receiving the protective equipment. To make matters worse, these heroes and warriors were not receiving their monthly stipend while others were only getting the usual R3500 stipend instead of R8500 salaries.
The SIU said in Gauteng alone it was investigating, 90 companies used to procure PPE; 30 companies used to procure medical equipment and 32 companies for services related to catering, flights, accommodation, counselling sessions for staff, among other services’. This is concerning to the R2K campaign as we indicated in our previous statements. We committed ‘’to examine and advocate for greater transparency and access to procurement and budgeting processes. This is particularly important for meaningful engagement and open society’’.
We have learnt that the premier placed Professor Mkhululi Lukhele, the head of department of health in Gauteng on precautionary leave following the SIU recommendations, after he was found to have failed to exercise his responsibilities in awarding the contracts to certain companies.
We are concerned however, that this deeply criminal act does not book him a place and orange overall in prison. He together with those who colluded with him both in the private and public sector should be declared delinquent.
We reiterate our call for implicated members of the government to be suspended and arrested. We demand that there should not be political influence in dealing with PPE corruption. While the ANC has extended the fate of Dr Bandile Masuku and Presidential spokesperson, Khusela Diko, both influential figures in the PEC, we will never rest until we see all corrupt politicians see their day in court. Scapegoating and hiding behind corrupted officials and thereafter redeploying them in a different function must come to an end.
As R2K Gauteng we will engage in a peaceful picket outside the department of health on Commissioner Street in Johannesburg to send a strong message against corruption. We will be joined by the chairperson of the forum that worked tirelessly to protect the dignity of Community Health care workers and the Orange Musk Against Corruption networks.
Time: 09:30 AM – 11AM
Date: 02 October 2020
Venue: Department of Health
Commissioner Street
Johannesburg
For more information contact:
Bongani ka Mthembu, R2K Gauteng Coordinator: 071 702 0427
Wakhile Tafani, R2K Gauteng Coordinator: 065 882 31187
