MyJHB

Stuff from Johannesburg

Why has Hlongwa not been charged with others in Gauteng Health corruption?

Dear Johannesburg

The DA welcomes the appearance in court today of four former officials of the Gauteng Health Department who were arrested in connection with alleged corruption in the award of a R1.2 billion tender to the Baoki Consortium in 2007.

The suspects include Sybil Ngcobo, former Gauteng health department head and accounting officer; Mmakgosi Mosupi, former chief director of Information and Communications Technology; Valdis Romaano, former director of Supply Chain Management; and former deputy director general Obakeng Mookeletsi.

This all happened when Brian Hlongwa was the MEC for Health and he is also implicated in the irregular award of the Baoki and other contracts.

The evidence includes the role of an Austrian citizen Mr Heinz Smidek, whose companies were part of the Baoki Consortium, in purchasing Hlongwa’s former home in Bryanston for R4.6 million as well as other gratifications to him in order for him to allegedly improperly influence the award of the tender to Baoki.

We need to know why Hlongwa has not been arrested and charged together with the officials who appeared in court today.

I have long suspected that the long delay in bringing this case to trial has been because Hlongwa had political protection.

The Gauteng Health Department has still not recovered from his disastrous tenure when financial controls dissolved and service delivery suffered.

There should be no fear or favour in ensuring that Hlongwa is also held to account along with others in this matter.

Regards

Jack Bloom MPL
DA Gauteng Shadow MEC for Health

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From Sophiatown to Triomf

By 1963, Sophiatown had been physically razed to the ground. In a final act of psychological warfare, the government built a white working-class suburb over the rubble and named it Triumph (Triomf). They wanted to erase the very memory of Sophiatown from the landscape. For decades, the name Sophiatown disappeared from maps, replaced by the neat, sterile streets of the victors.

The “resurrection” of Sophiatown began officially in 2006, when the City of Johannesburg formally restored the original name to the suburb. Today, the neighborhood is a quiet, leafy residential area, but the ghosts of the “Paris of the Transvaal” are everywhere. The Sophiatown Heritage Centre, housed in the former home of Dr. A.B. Xuma (a former ANC president), is one of the few original buildings that escaped the bulldozers. Walking through the streets today, you can still find small markers of the past: a lone Victorian pillar, a specific tree mentioned in a poem, or the rebuilt St. Joseph’s Church.

The legacy of Sophiatown is not just one of tragedy, but of an indestructible cultural spirit. The music, the slang (Tsotsitaal), and the “Drum” era aesthetic continue to influence South African fashion and film today. It serves as a reminder that while you can bulldoze a house and rename a street, you cannot kill the soul of a place that once danced to the sound of a thousand saxophones.