The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Gauteng notes the response by the Gauteng MEC for Sports, Arts, Culture and Recreation (SACR), Mbali Hlophe on the corruption exposed by the DA where R480 000 was spent on the installation of low-quality burglar bars on only 15 windows at the Gauteng Archives centre.
The MEC states that preliminary investigations have revealed that there was a parallel procurement of the service that was initiated over an existing contract with the main service provider at the time.
MEC Hlophe states that the officials that were found guilty of the illegal procurement and installation of surveillance cameras are also signatories to the payment of these exorbitant window prices. Some of these officials implicated in the window corruption scandal have been dismissed and others have resigned following the receipt of their suspension letters.
The department has engaged with law enforcement agencies for criminal charges to be laid against those implicated.
We will closely monitor the progress of this case to ensure that those implicated in corruption and criminality in stealing taxpayer’s money pay back every cent looted and face the might of the law.
The DA is concerned about MEC Hlophe’s lack of oversight of this department.
If the DA did not expose the rot in this department, such actions, and pronouncements by the MEC would not have happened.
We will write to the Gauteng Premier, David Makhura to raise our concern about a lack of focused oversight by the members of his executive who consistently fail to execute their oversight responsibilities in terms of the running of their departments.