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The salvaging of equipment from the abandoned Anglo Ashanti Hospital was recently completed as efforts are made to recover some of the R700 million spent to refurbish, equip and staff it.

According to a report tabled at yesterday’s meeting of the Gauteng Legislature’s Oversight Committee on the Premier’s Office and Legislature (OCPOL), the following equipment was salvaged from the hospital building:

• Heating, Ventilation and Air-conditioning (HVAC) equipment
• medical, mortuary, bathroom, kitchen, sluice and fire protection equipment
• generators

It was hazardous to rescue this equipment from a building vandalised by Zama Zama miners on the West Rand mine where it is located, including bullet holes in the walls.

A committee set up by former premier David Makhura could find no alternative use for this building which was supposed to have been donated by the mine owners to assist in treating Covid patients.

About R500 million was spent to renovate the building to provide 181 ICU beds, and another R200 million to staff and equip it for a brief period when 147 Covid patients were treated there. This amounts to R4.8 million for each patient!

The SIU is investigating how this project ballooned from the initial R50 million budget, and it is hoped that about R240 million can be recovered from contractors on the basis of unjust enrichment.

Meanwhile, there has been no political accountability for a fundamentally stupid decision to provide ICU beds in a facility with bad security far away from population centres.

The DA has been pressing for the minutes of the Gauteng Provincial Command Council where the decision was taken to upgrade this hospital, and then approved by the entire Provincial Executive Council.

We need to know who championed this, and whether there is any connection to corrupt people who profited from it while patients suffer in our under-resourced hospitals.

Efforts to recover money from this fiasco are desirable, but it should never have happened in the first place, and criminal charges should be pursued when the investigation is finalised.

Issued by Jack Bloom MPL - DA Gauteng Shadow MEC for Health