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[File Image]: Members from OUTA protest over Babita Deokaran’s murder.
Wits School of Governance Professor, Alex van den Heever says South Africans need to take action to end the high level of corruption and financial mismanagement in government.
He was speaking at a symposium in remembrance of whistle-blower and former Gauteng Health senior official, Babita Deokaran in Johannesburg.
Saturday will mark four years since Deokaran was gunned down outside her Johannesburg home.
Video | Deokaran remembered four years after her assasination:
At the time of her murder, she had flagged a multimillion-rand fraud tender at Tembisa Hospital.
Professor van den Heever says corruption filters from the top to bottom.
“We have allowed people to establish very rapid networks of extraction at the top of the systems. Which can close down anything anywhere in the system. So that the laws do not apply. And we have to recognise that this is going to continue to exist. Because the silence that we have in terms of the prosecution, and the disciplinary action tells a story of what is going on in the system,” says van den Heever.
Corruption in Gauteng Health, can it be stopped?
— Kathrada Foundation (@KathradaFound) August 22, 2025
Investigative journalist, Jeff Wicks, says the same people, who benefited from the looting at Thembisa hospital also benefited in other spheres of government such as Gauteng Education and Eskom.
Corruption Watch’s Davis Lewis says there are loopholes in the system.
“What is it about the management system in the Gauteng Department of Health which makes it as vulnerable to corruption? There are very simple things that I do not understand. For example, why so many large health facilities are managed by doctors? You would not send an experienced manager to do surgery? So, why send an experienced doctor to do management of an institution with big procurement budgets and complicated HR?
The Special Investigating Unit’s Leonard Legote says about 4,000 tenders are being investigated at the Thembisa Hospital. They are working on trying to recoup some of the lost money to these dubious companies.
“The investigation, I can confirm that it’s progressing very well and currently, there are some considerable outcomes that we had out of the investigation; one, it is that we have referred 111 disciplinary referrals regarding the Thembisa Hospital and Department of Health, so that they can take action against those individuals involved in corruption, plus 25 administrative referrals with some of the companies that were involved, four criminal referrals regarding corruption. It’s quite a complex investigation where we have seen a big web,” explains Legote.
A number of activists, members of NGO’s and Unionist, Zwelinzima Vavi were also part of the symposium.
