Creecy denies involvement in termination of Life Esidimeni contract
Former Gauteng Finance MEC Barbara Creecy has denied claims that the premier's budget committee took the decision to terminate the contract between the Department of Health and Life Esidimeni.
Creecy is appearing before the Life Esidimeni Inquest in the High Court in Pretoria on Tuesday.
She is currently serving as Minister of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries.
The inquest is looking into the deaths of more than 140 mentally-ill patients after they were moved from the Life Esidimeni facility to ill-equipped NGOs in 2016.
It seeks to determine if anyone should be held criminally liable for the deaths of the patients.
Former Health MEC Qedani Mahlangu has implicated Creecy and then premier David Makhura, saying they were behind the decision to move the patients.
During her cross-examination at the inquest, Mahlangu said Creecy and Makhura made the decision to end the Life Esidimeni contract in order to save over R300 million the department was spending on the project.
“I don’t have personal knowledge of that,” Creecy said on Tuesday.
“I have been subsequently informed in the course of the Moseneke Enquiry that it was Dr Selebano who took that decision, but I can confirm in this hearing that it was not the premier’s budget committee. Powers to procure and terminate contract rest with the accounting authority of the department.”
Creecy says the department took the decision to move patients as part of efforts to save money.
“My understanding is that the department took the decision to reduce their bed usage at Life Esidimeni by 20% per annum and that they were estimating that this would help them save R50 million in the 2015/16 financial year and that they were going to place patients in departmental institutions depending on the availability of beds.
“There was no cut in the health budget between 2014/2015 and 2017/2018.”
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