Mamabolo vows to ‘close the leaking taps’ amid allegations of Covid-19 looting
Acting MEC for Health in Gauteng Jacob Mamabolo has vowed to root out corruption in the department.
This comes after reports surfaced that millions of rands in Covid-19 funds are being looted by public officials and their friends and families.
The MEC Bandile Masuku and his wife Loyiso are among the officials accused of dodgy dealings.
On Wednesday, Mamabolo told Parliament’s cooperative governance committee that an audit would be launched soon to establish the department’s shortcomings.
“The issue of the robustness and effectiveness of our internal controls to deal with the issues that have come out of the province, particularly those controls in dealing with supply chain, procurement, logistics and oversight of those have proven that we need to deal with them. I don’t think we should be defensive about these issues.
“We will go back to the drawing board and look at internal controls as prescribed and defined by the Public Finance Management Act (PMFA).”
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Mboweni said if the instructions by National Treasury - aimed at preventing such exploitation - had been followed the conversation on corruption would not be happening. "If all the parties followed the tender process, the procurement process, we would not be having this conversation today," Mboweni said.
Mamabolo added that internal processes must be tightened.
“One of the issues that we will immediately look at is the effectiveness of the governance structures that are meant to prevent loopholes, leaks that lead to collusion, to fraud, to corruption, to theft and generally undermining PFMA.”
Mamabolo also vowed that MECs would be subjected to lifestyle audits.
“We will make sure that we close all the leaking taps while we fight corruption.”
