DA calls on Premier Saul to release long overdue Covid-19 Corruption Report

22 January 2021

Note to Editors: Please find attached soundbites in English & Afrikaans  from Harold McGluwa, MPL. 

With six months having passed since the publication of the Northern Cape government’s Covid-19 expenditure list, the Democratic Alliance (DA) will call on the Premier, Dr Zamani Saul, to now publish a subsequent Covid-19 corruption report.

Last year’s release of the list did a good job in inviting public scrutiny over the 175 involved companies that did business with provincial government. This public oversight must not have been in vain. We therefore want to know what the eventual outcomes of this exercise were, especially as a number of questionable companies were exposed on the list.

We are calling on Saul to present a report, informing us whether the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) was called on to probe allegations, and also detailing complaints received, investigations conducted, as well as disciplinary and criminal action taken.

Given that the initial expenditure report only went up until 31 July 2020, we are also calling on Saul to urgently update this. Covid-19 has not gone away and neither has Covid-19 expenditure come to a halt.

The DA will further request Saul to intervene in the slow response by government on the development of a municipal dashboard to keep track of Covid-19 expenditure of local governments. Municipal expenditure must not be allowed to slide under the radar because of a lack of systems in place.

Seeing as Members of the Provincial Legislature (MPLs) have been recalled from leave, following a special request by the DA for an urgent Covid-19 meeting, we will also push for the scheduling of virtual oversight meetings of all departments on ongoing Covid-19 expenditure.

Only by digging deeper can we collectively stop the corrupt vultures who take pride in feeding off this pandemic.

Issued by Harold McGluwa, DA Northern Cape Provincial Leader, 22 January 2021