Tembisa Hospital looting is murder, not just corruption

South Africa has one of the highest discrepancies between rich and poor on the planet. Statistics SA’s official reports record that while the proportion of the country’s people living below the poverty line is decreasing, it is still an appallingly high 25.7%.

That’s one in every four people who don’t have enough to live a basic life.

Yet, at the same time, there is obscene wealth out there… some of it amassed in illegal ways, like looting the public purse. This week the High Court in Johannesburg issued a final forfeiture order to the Asset Forfeiture Unit to seize assets from the syndicate allegedly run by tender kingpin Hangwani Maumela.

In total, those came to an eye-watering R326 million and included expensive toys such as Ferrari and Lamborghini supercars, boats and a luxury mansion in Joburg’s billionaire district.

The money to buy those assets came – allegedly – from the systematic looting of Tembisa Hospital in a sprawling R2.3 billion corruption scheme.

The absence of that money from the hospital’s budget undoubtedly meant that some patients received inadequate care – or none at all. And, from that, given the number of people going to the hospital, undoubtedly some of them died because of that lack of resources.

That is more than looting: it is economic terrorism. It is murder.

We wholeheartedly agree with the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation that asset forfeiture orders against tender kingpins be matched with prosecutions, supplier blacklisting and long jail terms.

The foundation warned that stripping syndicates of Lamborghinis and mansions is no substitute for prison cells, when billions looted from Tembisa Hospital left infants and patients without care.

But we can go further, still. We can formulate and pass laws which stipulate harsh sentences for those whose looting hurts or kills people.

You take a life, you spend the rest of yours behind bars.