The Gauteng Government has fired five of the nine senior managers from the Gauteng Departments of Health and Infrastructure Development who were implicated in the Anglo Ashanti Hospital corruption, the Office of the Gauteng Premier has said.
In its statement, it said five were dismissed, two received written warnings, one was acquitted, and the other could not be subjected to disciplinary action because he no longer worked for the department.
This follows a Special Investigation Unit (SIU) report recommending that disciplinary and criminal actions be considered against all of those implicated, writes Yoliswa Sobuwe for Health-e News.
In December 2022, Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi reported that the SIU had uncovered serious irregularities in the awarding of contractors for the refurbishment of Carletonville’s AngloGold Ashanti Hospital, which was supposed to have 180 ICU beds for Covid-19 critical care.
At the time Lesufi said: “The investigation revealed that the officials misled the Department of Health by indicating that only minor refurbishment needed to be implemented which led to an initial budget of about R50m – which ultimately skyrocketed to about R588m.”
The hospital was previously owned by AngloGold Ashanti mine and was donated to the government in response to the pandemic.
Lesufi said the officials were charged with various offences including misconduct, fraud, and corruption.
Gauteng DA’s health spokesperson Jack Bloom welcomed the conclusion of the disciplinary hearings against the nine officials, even though it dragged on for three years, and cost the department R17m for salaries of the suspended officials.
“Criminal charges should be laid against them as well as the companies that benefited from the irregular contracts,” he said.
“There should also be political accountability for the extremely poor decision to refurbish this hospital – which was not even owned by the government. It was supposed to be used for Covid-19 patients in 2020 but only a hundred patients were treated there. The hospital is now abandoned and vandalised,” he added.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Gauteng drops costly Ashanti COVID hospital deal
AngloGold Ashanti field hospital: R499m upgrade to treat 147 patients
DA: Cost of ‘white elephant’ Ashanti Hospital balloons to R733m