News24 reports that it took eight years for the Gauteng government to investigate a fraud case against a provincial health official.

This was revealed on Wednesday by Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi in a written reply to the DA in the Gauteng legislature. The official was accused of registering as a director of a daycare NGO that benefitted R2.4 million from the Gauteng Department of Social Development. The DA had asked why the forensic investigation into allegations of fraudulent activity took so long, as the case was received on 2 July 2014 and finalised only on 15 November 2022. Lesufi explained that the case took a long time to be completed as it was initially not allocated timeously due to capacity constraints. "When the project was ultimately allocated to the investigation team, they resigned while the allegations were still being investigated. The project could not be replicated on time as the other team members were also finalising other assigned projects, resulting in further delays," he said. Lesufi indicated that the case was then allocated to the newly recruited director, who resigned while the investigation was in the execution phase. In the end there was no evidence indicating that the official benefitted from the funding. When asked who did the investigation and how much it cost, Lesufi said it was conducted internally by staff members in the provincial forensic audit unit and no service provider was paid. Gauteng DA health spokesperson Jack Bloom said in other cases that took more than four years to conclude, the department blamed capacity constraints as the provincial forensic audit unit experienced a high staff turnover rate due to continuous resignations of staff members.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Yoliswa Sobuwa at News24

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