Defence and Military Veterans Minister Angie Motshekga stands accused of “untruthfully” answering a Parliamentary question and will, if her accuser has his way, be investigated by Parliament’s Ethics Committee.
The untruthful allegation is contained in an 11-page affidavit submitted to the Ethics Committee on 10 March by Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) National Assembly (NA) public representative Carl Niehaus.
His complaint against President Cyril Ramaphosa’s minister of defence and military veterans centres on 1 Military Hospital in Thaba Tshwane where repairs, refurbishment and upgrades totalling billions have been ongoing for years. Niehaus maintains at least parts of Motshekga’s reply to him were untruthful, a deliberate attempt to mislead Parliament, factually incorrect and “a blatant lie”.
He includes extracts from Parliamentary presentations in his affidavit. These include the “ceding” of 1 Military Hospital to the Department of Defence without “any legal disputes or court cases” and that equipment worth R20.8 million “procured” for the hospital remained unused due to incomplete refurbishment and its “operational lifespan lapsed resulting in a likely material loss”.
Another affidavit point refers to an Auditor General presentation stating “appropriate action should be taken to determine whether the responsible officials are liable in law for the losses suffered by the department [of defence] for the purpose of recovery, as required by [National] Treasury regulations”.
An EFF statement in support of the Niehaus affidavit adds that, “most disconcertingly, the Auditor General added that the Department conducted a forensic audit on the refurbishment and maintenance of 1 Military Hospital, completing the investigation in December 2020. As a result, in 2021, the case was referred to the Hawks for further investigation under Inquiry No. 2021/09/02. As of the date of the Audit Report, the investigation was still ongoing. Despite this the Minister, nonetheless, unashamedly answered in her written reply in the National Assembly that the hospital project was relinquished to the Department of Defence with no legal issues whatsoever.”
Consequently, “the EFF asserts that on the basis of what the National Treasury and the Auditor General reported to the Portfolio Committee for Defence and Military Veterans (PCDMV), what the Minister stated in her parliamentary reply was factually incorrect and a blatant lie. Consequently, Motshekga violated the law and the Rules of Parliament, and this warrants an expeditious investigation and sanction by Parliament. While unsurprising, as the ANC has a reputation for being strangers with the truth, these violations extend to various clauses of the Executive Members Ethics Act, 82 of 1998, as well as the Codes of Ethics”.
It reads further that relief is being sought to protect the dignity of Parliament and to ensure proper sanctions are imposed should the Minister be found guilty of having contravened the Rules of Parliament. The Niehaus affidavit further has it if the “averments are indeed true, the Minister would have violated the law and Rules of Parliament, warranting an expeditious investigation and sanction by Parliament”.
In August last year, Motshekga told Niehaus the refurbishing and modernising 1 Military Hospital will be complete by January 2027. The hospital on the northern side of Thaba Tshwane has a history of failed repair and maintenance going back to 1999 when the then Department of Public Works, now the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure (DPWI), approved a repair and maintenance project (RAMP) for the flagship military healthcare facility. This morphed into a “RAMP expansion” and further into what was described as “refurbishment” by Abacus Financial Crime Advisory in a presentation to the then Joint Standing Committee on Defence (JSCD) in February 2022.
Words and phrases such as “unsound relationships” through to “continued dilapidation”, “further contract extension”, “guess estimates” and “off-the-record meetings” were used in the presentation.
In 2019 it was estimated that refurbishing 1 Mil would cost R1.4 billion and by 2019/20 over R1 billion was spent on other health service providers to accommodate patients in the absence of facilities at 1 Mil.
In 2022, then Joint Standing Committee on Defence co-chair Cyril Xaba said 1 Military Hospital had gone from being a “jewel of the defence force” to “a white elephant”.
