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The DA will file criminal charges against Deputy Minister of Finance Sfiso Buthelezi and the former PRASA board which he was chair of, on alleged offences related to financial mismanagement while at PRASA.

The DA will also write to the Chairpersons of the Transport and Finance Committee Portfolios requesting a joint sitting in order to get to the bottom of the serious allegations implicating Buthelezi and the PRASA board which he chaired at the time, in corruption at the entity.

These offences were laid bare in the findings contained in the “leaked version” of forensic reports commissioned by National Treasury, into 193 contracts PRASA entered into between 2012 and 2016, as instructed by the Public Protector’s 2015 “Derailed” report. This is in addition to charges the DA laid against Buthelezi and his brother on the 10th of June 2017 on allegations of corruption.

In the weight of overwhelming evidence as revealed in the Treasury report, the DA will reinstate charges of alleged corruption that we laid against former PRASA, Lucky Montana, on 27 August 2015, which the SAPS subsequently closed as they deemed the matter unfounded.

It is highly suspicious that the National Treasury has been sitting on this report while most of the reports from the auditors into the same investigations were completed in 2016 already.

This is a seeming tactic to delay the release of the report as Deputy Minister Buthelezi is implicated in corruption that took place during his tenure at PRASA.

It is now clear that Montana, unduly used his influence to steal from the public purse in order to enrich himself and his associates. While at the helm of PRASA, he and the PRASA board allegedly flouted the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) and the Supply Chain Management and accessed taxpayers’ monies.

Buthelezi as the then chair of the PRASA board seemingly did little to stop the graft and corruption at the entity where he used his position to allegedly enrich himself and family and he needs to be held accountable.

There is clearly no justification for this and we call upon Transport Minister Joe Maswanganyi to ensure that both the SAPS and the Hawks speed up investigations into corruption at the entity.

The DA will continue fighting to re-assure the South African public that we are committed to rooting out corruption at public entities that unashamedly steal from the poor.

Issued by DA