Note to Editors: Find attached soundbites in English and Setswana by DA North West Chief Whip, Freddy Sonakile. The questions submitted are also attached.
Following reports of widespread corruption pertaining to Covid-19 relief funding and procurement of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), the Democratic Alliance (DA) in North West will today submit written questions to all Government Departments to ascertain how many Covid-related items have been procured, what the costs were, the procedures followed, names of suppliers and companies that carried out transportation of the goods.
The DA previously submitted questions to the Department of Health, Social Development, Arts and Culture and Agriculture on the expenditure of Covid relief funding and PPE, to which only Agriculture responded.
The Ngaka Modiri Molema District Municipality and JB Marks Local Municipality have already been exposed for dubious expenditure of Covid-19 relief funds after appearing before the North West Provincial Legislature’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA), but this is merely scratching the surface. Several other municipalities never received the total funds allocated to them and an investigation should be launched to determine which municipalities misused the funds received.
To this end, we will probe the irregular expenditure of Covid funding by municipalities by submitting questions to the Departments of Finance and Cooperative Governance, Human Settlements and Traditional Affairs (COGHSTA).
It is in the interest of the public to know the truth and we will carbon copy Premier Mokgoro on all correspondence to ensure that our questions are responded to and also that Departments and municipalities account for the lack of transparency on the expenditure of public funds.