08 March 2024

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) in the Northern Cape notes and welcomes the arrest of senior officials in the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture on allegations of corruption. The allegations are of fraud and money laundering, relating to the payment of R1 million for a music festival in 2016 at Colesberg, which never materialised.

The Federation is not surprised by this development.  However, we are concerned about the length of time it took our institutions assigned to arrest and prosecute the suspects who are accused of robbing the fiscus and denying badly needed resources to the working-class communities.  Public funds are workers’ and taxpayers’ hard-earned monies.

When people steal from the state, they deny the poor service delivery in the form of basic services such as water, which the province is currently experiencing shortages of.  Furthermore, they compromise the economy the resources needed to spur growth and create jobs.

We therefore call on our government, the Special Investigations Unit, the Hawks and the South African Police Service to begin to prioritise cases of corruption and ensure that these matters are handled expeditiously in order to deter potential corruption and further looting of public funds.

Our province is moving at a snail’s pace when it comes to development.  A key contributor to these is the loss of monies to corruption and a sense of impunity held by those who break the law.

Issued by COSATU Northern Cape

For more information, contact:

Orapeleng Moraladi(COSATU Northern Cape Provincial Secretary)
Cell: 078 452 6891
Tel: 053 832 9090