Eastern Cape public funds scandal - R500 million missing

PUBLIC FUNDS SCANDAL - STOFILE MUST BE REMOVED FROM OFFICE
Based on the findings of the leaked Pillay Commission Report, Sports
Minister Makhenkesi Stofile should be immediately removed from office,
said DA Leader Helen Zille last Thursday.
She was reacting to the publication of leaked findings from the report
of the Pillay Commission, which has been handed to the Eastern Cape
provincial government, but has not yet been officially released.
It was reported in the media that the report showed how Stofile, a
former premier of the province, and two other senior ANC politicians
and their families, benefited from an 'orchestrated siphoning off' of
nearly R200-million in public funds.
The report said another R250-million simply disappeared from the
province's public coffers over a decade.
The other politicians named are present ANC Eastern Cape provincial
Chairperson Stone Sizani, a former education MEC, and Enoch
Godongwana, a former economic affairs MEC and present head of the
Financial Sector Charter Council.
According to the report, Stofile signed off R760 000 from the
Premier's Fund to two organisations linked to his wife, Nambitha, and
that two more of Stofile's relatives had irregularly granted Eastern
Cape Development Corporation (ECDC) loans totalling just under half a
million rands.
Bobby Stevenson, DA chief whip in the provincial legislature, said
that part of the reason that the Pillay Report had seen the light of
day was due to a DA motion in the Eastern Cape legislature to have the
report tabled, a motion which was unanimously agreed to by all
parties.
"Stofile must be given a chance to clear his name in a court of law,
but, until this happens, he has no place in government," Zille said.
Current Premier of the Eastern Cape, Nosimo Balindlela, had resisted
the release of the report for over a year and apparently 'begged' the
press not to release the leaked report.
"Now we know why," Zille said, "If the Premier deliberately attempted
to cover up the report she must also be removed from office."
She said it was easy to see how 90% of South Africans saw corruption
as 'a way of life' when half a billion rand can disappear from the
coffers of a provincial administration.
"It is a reflection of the amorality of sections of our political
leadership and an indictment of the financial management system in
some administrations".
"The tragedy is that these funds could have been used to deliver
quality services to the many desperately poor people in the Eastern
Cape - if the money had been spent on water purification plants, for
example, then perhaps 100 babies would not have died from consuming
dirty drinking water."
Zille said corruption was eating away at the heart of the state.
"If President Mbeki does nothing to stop the rot and fails to act
against one of his allies, it will be another blight on his tarnished
legacy," she said.