Delivering his departmental budget speech for 2022/23 in the Provincial Legislature, MEC Mxolisi Dukwana assured, what he terms, the victims of asbestos that eradication will be done in due course. Currently over 13 people, including former premier Ace Magashule, are facing varying charges of fraud, corruption and money laundering in the Free State High Court over the alleged looting of R255 million in the failed 2014 project.

Also read: #AsbestosGate: Bfn abuzz with activity as Magashule appears in court

Delivering his budget speech at the Provincial Legislature this morning, Dukwana announced that the service delivery programme in the province were hamstrung by acts of malfeasance and corruption. Dukwana says this was demonstrated at the State Capture Commission (SCC).

"Most of these acts were perpetrated consciously to steal from the masses of our people using well-sounding populist sentiment, which was designed to mobilise our people on the basis of their sensibilities.

As a consequence, our government has not been able to deliver adequate houses to the people as well as purge the toxic asbestos four-roomed houses - built by the apartheid government - which caused diseases in our communities, including deadly asbestosis," he adds.

Dukwana has further commended the Zondo Commission, law enforcement authorities, whistleblowers, and the media for exposing what he terms as "grand scale looting".

Dukwana's sentiments about the controversial asbestos subjects come at the back of extensive court arguments in the Free State High Court in February during the civil litigation between the accused and the state who wanted charges against them thrown out of court.

During the argument, Advocate (Adv.) Nazeer Cassim (SC), who represented the State, argued that there was a flagrant breach of Treasury regulations when awarding the controversial multimillion project, which was said to eradicate the asbestos roofs of 30 000 households across the province in 2014.

Cassim told Judge Soma Naidoo that the Free State Department of Human Settlements in 2014 wrongfully piggybacked on a Gauteng contract without the approval of Treasury. Cassim said several regulations, including the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA), amongst others, were deliberately flouted by the accused in the case.

Also, OFM News reported that Magashule, and three co-accused's attempts to have charges related to the failed R255 million asbestos project against them to be thrown out of court, have been dealt a blow. Judge Soma Naidoo in the Free State High Court in Bloemfontein dismissed the civil litigation of Magashule and company, with costs, in favour of the State.

Also read -#AsbestosGate: There was a flagrant breach of treasury regulations - State

Dukwana tells Members of the Provincial Legislature (MPLs), sitting in the Fourth Raadsaal in Bloemfontein on Tuesday afternoon, that the new administration of government will do everything in its power to assist law enforcement institutions in their investigations to uncover what happened and deal with the alleged culprits.

"We are committed to ensuring that by implementing the programme of social housing, the community conversion units, the installation of bulk infrastructure in newly promulgated townships, the upgrading of the informal settlements, that the noble principle of non-racialism is achieved through Human Settlements that truly lend dignity to our people, as well as foster social cohesion and nation-building," Dukwana further adds.

Dukwana is set to deliver Cooperative Governance's (Cogta) budget speech on 30 March 2022 at the Legislature's sitting in the Fourth Raadsaal in Bloemfontein.

OFM News