Newscenter Media News A late March Parliamentary oversight visit to the supposed premier healthcare facility in the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) – 1 Military Hospital in Thaba Tshwane – brought to light it remains in “a dire state” notwithstanding more than R1 billion spent on a repair and maintenance programme (RAMP) over more than a decade.
Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) National Assembly (NA) public representative Carl Niehaus was scathing after seeing 1 Mil for himself. Unhappy with Defence and Military Veterans Minister Angie Motshekga’s response to a Parliamentary question, he filed a complaint with a supporting affidavit to Parliament’s Ethics Committee alleging she lied.
“What I and other MPs saw at 1 Mil supported my affidavit and showed, contrary to her implication all was well at the hospital, that everything was wrong,” he told defenceWeb.
Another who was under-whelmed by the state of 1 Mil was Democratic Alliance (DA) National Council of Provinces (NCOP) Member of Parliament (MP), Nicholas Gotsell. Post the 27 March visit he put Motshekga in the figurative firing line by way of a letter seeking her urgent intervention as, according to him, “critical sections of the hospital sit in dire state”.
A statement has him saying: “Despite over a billion Rand spent on refurbishments over 25 years, the first and second floors remain completely gutted and are meant to house emergency theatres, a radiology unit and pharmacy”.
“Last year, when questioned by the DA in the NCOP, the Minister claimed the facility was in good condition. The Committee’s visit has again proven this untrue.”
“Due to corruption, since 2010, the Hospital has had to outsource medical procedures, costing an additional hundreds of millions. While a forensic report exposed corrupt senior officials, there have been no consequences for those implicated. The DA has also submitted Parliamentary Questions to the Minister of Police, requesting updates on these criminal investigations,” Gotsell added.
Gotsell’s “untrue” allegations align with parts of Niehaus’ 11-page affidavit submitted to Parliament’s Ethics Committee in March. In it he accuses Motshekga of “untruthfully” answering a Parliamentary question. The EFF MP on Tuesday 8 April told this publication other than an acknowledgement of receipt of the affidavit he had heard nothing further.
The late March oversight visit to military facilities in an around the Tshwane metro saw at least 17 MPs from all three defence committees – the Joint Standing Committee on Defence (JSCD), the Portfolio Committee on Defence and Military Veterans (PCDMV) in the National Assembly (NA) and the National Council of Provinces’ (NCOP) Select Committee on Security and Justice (SCSJ) – descend on what is known to many as the defence capital of South Africa, in addition to being the administrative capital. Apart from 1 Mil, the oversight visit also took in Thaba Tshwane, the SANDF College, Denel and Armscor, including Gerotek and Protechnik, defenceWeb was told.
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