MyPE

Community Business Directory, Event Listings, News and Views from Gqeberha, Nelson Mandela Bay

President must expand SIU investigation into Eastern Cape Department of Health

By

Dear Editor

The scope of the latest Special Investigations Unit (SIU) investigation into the Eastern Cape Department of Health, commissioned by President Cyril Ramaphosa, barely scrapes the surface of the rot of corruption entrenched in this department.

For years, maladministration, unlawful conduct, and gross misuse of funds have run rampant, with serious failures in infrastructure tender processes, supply chain management, and internal controls.

The theft of patient records and the ensuing flood of medico-legal claims have compounded the crisis, yet only a handful of officials have faced charges, often escaping with little more than a slap on the wrist.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) welcomed the President’s declaration but doesn’t believe the scope is sufficient.

The rot goes much further back than 2022, particularly in the infrastructure programme tender processes, as well as in supply chain management and the stealing of patient records.

I have written to President Ramaphosa to urge him to expand the special investigation as far back as the beginning of the 5th administration, in 2014.

Many of the players from that term are still around, some still in the Health Department, while some have been transferred to other departments where they enjoy the protection of their political leadership. Others have retired with their ill-gotten gains.

A few areas worth investigating would be:

  • EMS overtime practices
  • Doctors’ commuted overtime
  • Tender processes in the infrastructure programme
  • Re-employment of corrupt contractors
  • PPE tender corruption
  • The 12-year upgrade of Nessie Knight Hospital

If this government is serious about cleaning up corruption and respecting the public purse, this investigation will be a good starting point.

The true cost of this corruption is borne by ordinary South Africans. Patients, particularly those in vulnerable communities, suffer as the health system crumbles around them. Medical facilities are under-resourced, basic healthcare is out of reach, and lives are lost daily due to a collapsing health service.

In our province, the victims are the patients who no longer have access to adequate healthcare due to years of corrupt practices that have in no small way contributed to the financial crisis we now face in the health department. Patients lose their lives daily due to collapsed health services, so it is safe to say that corruption kills. Protecting corrupt officials equates to having blood on your hands.

The DA has long warned that centralising healthcare under the NHI risks replicating these failures nationally. Without addressing corruption at the provincial level, there is little reason to trust that a national health system would fare any better.

We remain steadfast in our determination to root out all corrupt practices and all officials implicated in these practices. They must be exposed and face the full might of the law. Only in this way will we be able to restore our failing health system, so that our citizens can once again access the healthcare services they deserve.

Regards

Jane Cowley MPL
DA Shadow MEC for Health

The following two tabs change content below.

Port Elizabethan

This author is a 'catch-all' for occasional articles and letters written to MyPE. The Author of each article can be found in the signature at the bottom of each individual article.