The corruption and waste of public money during the Covid pandemic has been a worldwide problem and the Western Cape is unfortunately no different.
Within the City of Cape Town, more than R50 million was spent on creating a temporary camp for the homeless.
Cape Town’s Safety and Security Directorate spent R43.8 million on renting a few marquee tents for a few weeks, according to Minister Bredell.
A marquee tent costs as little as R85,000 to buy, so something just doesn’t add up.
For less money, Cape Town could have bought a building and refurbished it to create permanent shelter spaces for the homeless; or they could have paid for each homeless person to stay in a hotel or guest house for 6 weeks.
I have reported this spending to the National Special Investigations Unit to investigate and hopefully arrest anyone involved in price inflations. Wasteful spending must be recovered and the crooks must go to jail.
Now as we begin to open up, I appeal to all South Africans to continue to be safe and cautious. We must begin to rebuild our economy, but we must also try to avoid the second waves of Covid that other countries in Europe are beginning to see.
Keep washing your hands, maintain social distancing wherever possible and keep using your mask. Together, we can keep each other safe.
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