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Corruption Watch (CW), in response to the Special Investigating Unit’s (SIU) interim investigation report on Tembisa Hospital released yesterday, 29 September 2025, joins the calls for decisive action against the syndicates and officials named in the stealing of over R2-billion of the hospital’s funds.
The confirmation that three syndicates are involved in these brazen acts of corruption, enabled by the complicity of junior officials at the hospital and in the Gauteng health department, comes as no surprise. Similarly, the details revealed yesterday display the lengths that corrupt individuals will go to in order to enrich themselves and cover their tracks of fraud and corruption, in their quest to loot from the hospital’s resources intended to provide healthcare to the most vulnerable. It is small comfort that four years after the brutal murder of whistle-blower Babita Deokoran, the full truth is finally being uncovered.
The urgency to seek prosecutions of those implicated in the report and to hold them accountable for their actions cannot be downplayed. The South African public grows increasingly impatient and tired of the daily exposure of systemic corruption and the impunity of corrupt individuals, with seemingly little action taken against them, while government makes promises that mean nothing. It is time for decisive action!
These current findings from the report are damning, as it becomes clear that syndicates involving officials and service providers have been able to continue their looting with no consequences, most likely for years, and with no intervention by law enforcement agencies. As far back as June 2018, CW, Section27, and the Treatment Action Campaign made public an SIU report that had been shelved since 2010, highlighting widespread corruption and gross financial misconduct to the tune of R1.2-billion in the Gauteng Department of Health between 2006 and 2010.
CW welcomes the news that the evidence gathered in this investigation will finally be handed over to other law enforcement agencies for further investigation, with the hope that the law will take its course and that high-profile criminals will be found guilty for their actions. The organisation also applauds the bravery and courage of whistle-blowers who put their lives at risk to root out the corruption that they have uncovered. The country cannot stand by as whistle-blowers like Babita are gunned down for acting in the public good – much more must be done to protect these heroes in our society.
The mismanagement of resources severely impacts the well-being of all residents and erodes the delivery of critical services, while poor governance undermines the effectiveness of systems that were put in place in to preventdw corruption.
The guilty parties must be held accountable, and systemic corruption dismantled.
For media enquiries contact:
Oteng Makgotlwe
Cell: 076 473 8336 E-mail: OtengM@corruptionwatch.org.za
