DA calls for answers from Premier, Education MEC following release of damning SIU report

1 February 2022

The Democratic Alliance has written to KwaZulu-Natal Premier, Sihle Zikalala, and his Education MEC, Kwazi Mshengu, (view here and here) calling for answers following the release of a damning consolidated report by the Special Investigative Unit.

The report confirms what the DA has long suspected – that KZN’s Department of Education is a cauldron of corruption.

Both the Premier and the MEC would have had sight of the document by now. What we want to know if why they have, to date, failed to act on the information provided. (view here)

The report implicates a large number of officials and companies, by name, including the current Acting HOD, the then Education HOD who - in the DA’s view, also openly misled the education portfolio committee - the MEC and the Premier about PPE procurement involving hundreds of millions of rands.

The questions that need to be answered include;
- Are the named officials still in the system?
- Or, has the MEC acted against them and
- Has the MEC for Health been asked about the vetting of PPE to the DoE?

Despite the evidence before him, there is nothing to confirm that that MEC Mshengu has acted. Nor has he provided any such indication to members of the KZN Education portfolio committee or the KZN Legislature. Instead, he has asked the SIU to review their findings – a fact which is also confirmed in this report and by the MEC Mshengu on several occasions.

In other words, despite being presented by concrete investigative findings of the SIU, he continued to try to have the findings changed. Fortunately, the SIU did not fold to the MEC’s attempts to whitewash their findings and continued to make plain their stance.

The MEC’s lack of response to the recent release of the SIU’s findings is discourteous to their authority, if not contemptible. In fact, it seems that he has no intention of acting on their recommendations. This tells us that that the MEC, if anything, is both defiant and is sitting on his hands. The question is why and who is he protecting?

The DA has maintained from the start that DoE PPE procurement was irregular, inflated and possibly fraudulent and filled with corruption. If anything, this report indicates that we were correct.

The theft of funding for the people - by the very people who were elected to serve them - is despicable. If the MEC thinks that by stalling, this issue is going to go away, he should think again.

The Premier has made public his stance to fight corruption within the provincial government he leads. He has also made plain that there will be consequence management during his tenure. It is now time to walk the talk.

We expect him to exercise his constitutional and lawful authority to act, even if it means placing KZN’s DoE under administration, given the large number of senior officials involved.

The DA will continue to pursue this matter through all available legal channels until such time as those who have robbed the public purse are held accountable.

Issued by Imran Keeka, DA KZN Spokesperson on Education, 1 February 2022