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Gauteng Prime Minister David Makhura.
- Gauteng Prime Minister David Makhura says he is willing to appear before the ANC’s integrity committee and is willing to step aside if asked by the ANC.
- Makhura said the stories implicating him in tender corruption are based on wrong judgment.
- He said there was a plot to remove him from Gauteng politics.
Gauteng Prime Minister David Makhura has offered to step down from his government and ANC positions after his office was implicated in awarding irregular contracts.
While labeling the stories as “lies and a smear campaign orchestrated to tarnish my name” in order to “ultimately eliminate [him] from the Gauteng political scene, “Makhura said that he was nevertheless willing to submit to the ANC’s rules.
“As a member of the ANC, I must also comply with the constitution, the resolutions of the conference and the decision of the ANC,” he said in a seven-page statement dated Friday, January 29.
He said:
In particular, I must lead the fight against the scourge of corruption, which undermines the vision, values and principles of the society for which many fought and sacrificed. Corruption is an antithesis of fundamental socio-economic transformation and sustainable development.
He said that he had informed provincial ANC officials that he would like to appear before the ANC integrity commission to offer an explanation “about these false accusations.”
He said he was willing to abide by the ANC’s decision on his fate.
His statement follows a story in the Sunday World on January 24 in which Makhura was reported to be directly involved in the looting of personal protective equipment tenders in which former health MEC Bandile Masuku was implicated.
STATEMENT ISSUED BY THE PREMIER OF GAUTENG DAVID MAKHURA ON THE ALLEGATIONS AGAINST THE PREMIER’S OFFICE ON IRREGULARITIES IN THE ACQUISITION OF PPE pic.twitter.com/2LfeEf6XJ8
– David Makhura (@David_Makhura) January 30, 2021
In a meeting with the ANC on Thursday night, the leaders allegedly criticized him and Gauteng Panyaza Lesufi’s MEC of Education for the accusations made against them or their departments.
Lesufi’s department spent more than R431 million on tenders to decontaminate classrooms, although this was not required by the health department.
The district attorney has also asked them to step aside.
Makhura said the story about him was based on a misunderstanding of what was meant by the “Prime Minister’s Office,” which said it had 350 employees.
This comes after the former financial director of the Department of Health, Kabelo Lehloenya, in an affidavit to the Special Court, said that some of the providers had awarded contracts at “multiple levels”, one of which was through the Prime Minister’s Office.
In the decision of the Special Court of December 10, which ruled in favor of the Special Investigation Unit’s request to review and annul illegally awarded contracts and recover lost public funds, the judge wrote that Lehloenya had implicated the prime minister as one of the officials “who provided the names of the persons and entities” for the offers he received.
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Makhura in his statement said: “It is quite evident that the judge was wrong in replacing the ‘Office of the Premier’ with the Premier. The Office of the Premier is a department made up of more than 350 employees. The ruling directly refers to the Premier as one of the officials who provided the names of the persons and entities whose offers were illegally received and awarded PPE contracts. This implies that I was directly involved in the irregularities in the PPE acquisition. “
Makhura requested this week that the sentence be corrected because “they are historical records that have far-reaching consequences and must be accurate.”
He also accused Lehloenya herself of “deliberate obfuscation” and said that the affidavit, and the allegations against the Prime Minister’s Office, should be investigated by the Special Investigation Unit.
He said that the SIU had informed him on Friday that his request for such an investigation was granted as part of its investigations under Presidential Proclamation R20 of 2020.
Makhura said his personal integrity was in question as a result.
Masuku was fired because the SIU determined that he did not fulfill his functions in accordance with the Constitution and the Public Finance Management Law in his supervision of the PPE acquisition.
ANC provincial secretary Jacob Khawe said the party received Makhura’s request and “agreed that we have to get all the details of the case and inform the PEC before any process.”
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