10 April 2000
Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa is outraged by the Heath Special Investigating Unit's reluctance to furnish him with names of officials in the Gauteng Housing department who may be implicated in corrupt practices.
At a meeting between the Premier and the Heath Unit held on 3 March 2000, at the Premier's Office, Judge Heath indicated that the unit had identified a number of officials in the Housing Department who were implicated in corrupt practices. He however indicated that he was reluctant to move against them at that stage because they were co-operating with the unit in its investigations.
The Premier indicated that he wanted to institute disciplinary proceedings against the suspects as a matter of urgency as he felt that the department would continue to be exposed to the risk of further corruption by those officials if they were not weeded out. It was then agreed that the Heath Unit would furnish the Premier with information, including the identities of implicated officials, regarding the housing investigations in approximately 2 weeks from the date of the meeting. The 2 weeks came and went.
The Premier heard nothing from the Heath Unit until 7 April 2000 when he received a fax from the unit's Gauteng Investigations Manager Mr. M.J. Rheeder, stating that that "... After discussions with Judge Heath, it was decided that names of employees will only be handed to the Premier when the investigators are 100% certain of their facts and are in the possession of concrete evidence to conclude a successful disciplinary hearing, criminal or civil case" This situation clearly hinders the Premier from taking decisive steps to stamp out corruption in the Housing Department. The Premier is surprised that he is now being told of investigators having to be "100% certain of their facts" after having been told how well the investigations had progressed and how suspects were co-operating and furnishing more information to the unit.
The Premier does not accept the reasons supplied by the heath Unit for refusing to disclose to him the names of government officials implicated in corruption and would accordingly be communicating with Judge Willem Heath to insist that the unit supplies him the names.
Issued by: Thabo Masebe
Spokesperson for the Premier
Gauteng Provincial Government
Tel: 082 551 4945