Note to Editors: Attached please find a soundbite in English by Dr Jack Bloom here.
The Democratic Alliance condemns the Gauteng Health Department’s blatant disregard for a motion passed by the Gauteng Provincial Legislature calling for a report within six months on steps taken to honour the legacy of murdered whistleblower Babita Deokaran.
On 25 November last year, the Legislature unanimously passed my motion that the Department identify, in consultation with the family of Babita Deokaran, an appropriate way to honour her memory – such as the naming of a new facility, department, or a personnel service award. The six-month deadline to report back to House on progress expired on 25 May last week.
According to Babita’s family, they have not been contacted by the Department despite Gauteng Health MECs lip-service to Babita in supporting the motion.
This is an absolute disgrace. It defies the Legislature and reveals yet again the Department’s disdain for Babita’s sacrifice in exposing the looting of more than R2 billion from the Tembisa Hospital by syndicates with fake companies who scooped contracts for undelivered goods.
When Babita was alive, this Department treated her with contempt, suspending her at one stage on false charges for six months. The then Chief Financial Officer Lerato Madyo covered up Babita’s call for a forensic audit of Tembisa Hospital contracts, which were only exposed by the tenacious reporting of journalist Jeff Wicks.
Scandalously, Madyo was not disciplined but allowed to resign with a secret payout that the Department refuses to disclose.
While the DA welcomes the SIU’s recent seizure of assets of an implicated Tembisa Hospital official, we are disappointed that no criminal charges have yet been laid against the syndicate heads, including Mr Hangwani Maumela, who is a nephew of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s first wife.
The people of Gauteng deserve better than a Health Department that treats both the Legislature and the memory of its slain officials with contempt.
The DA will be writing to the Speaker of the Gauteng Legislature to censure the Gauteng Health MEC and the Acting Head of Department for defying a binding motion, and we will continue to fight for a memorial that satisfies the wishes of her family.