Rose Gudlhuza, ID MPL for Gauteng, says MEC for Public Transport, Roads and Works Ignatius Jacobs should suspend the director-general in his office ‘with immediate effect.’

Gudlhuza was responding to reports that R6.5 million of taxpayer’s money has gone missing from the department. It is alleged that this sum was paid through as part of Gautrain land expropriation payment for a Midrand property that cost only about half a million rand.

‘We in the Independent Democrats in Gauteng believe that if these allegations are true then the DG, Sibusiso Buthelezi is working in the opposite direction to attempts by the department to make the province economically more viable through investment in infrastructure,’ says Gudlhuza.

‘His widely documented alleged corrupt activities continue to haunt not just his own department, but the provincial government as a whole.’

Gudlhuza said it was not clear why Buthelezi still had a job, despite the bungling of the construction of the Jabulani Hospital, where he approved a contract of R692 million, double the amount that was budgeted for.

‘The empowerment companies to which Buthelezi awarded the contract for the Jabulani Hospital failed dismally and the people of Gauteng were told that their money would be returned. How much of that money has actually been returned?

‘It is the right of the taxpayers and the poor to know the answer to these questions,’ Gudlhuza says.

For media enquiries, please call Sibongile Maputi, ID Gauteng Media Officer, on 083 284 0646