Scopa probes shocking Tubatse land purchase

The Legislature’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) sat until 01:00 yesterday (Wednesday) morning to get answers from Cooperative Governance, Human Settlements and Traditional Affairs MEC Makoma Makhurupetje regarding the Tubat­se land issue that made headlines last week.
The department appeared before the committee on Tuesday to account on issues raised by the Auditor General in its report for the 2016/17 financial year. The hearing started at 14:00 and dragged on due to the fact that departmental officials could not give adequate answers to the committee.
According to the reports and the Committee Chairperson, Snowy Kennedy Monyemoratho, the Tubatse land was valued at R8,14 million but the department purchased the land with R116,5 million and this raised questions.
“I told the officials that the Tubatse land issue is corruption at its best and we cannot allow it. We only scratched the surface on Tuesday. We want to go deeper and unearth the truth around the issue in order for responsible officials to be held accountable. The department regressed due to hidden skeletons in the closet but we cannot allow any department to misuse taxpayers’ money,” she emphasised.
Makhurupetje, reading from written responses said the department has since withdrawn the matter from Auditor General’s report and took it to the Hawks for forensic investigations to ensue. She further said the investigations would enable the department to take appropriate action against officials who may be found to have committed acts of fraud.
The department was requested to bring supporting documents and a case number from the Hawks investigation when they appear again before the committee on 26 October to support their answers.
It was reported that the department had failed to build 26 000 houses for impoverished families as per their target and Monye­moratho said she was disappointed by the fact that the department had lied to the committee saying 14 000 houses had not been built.
She indicated that the department said they failed to meet the target because they had to buy vehicles for traditional leaders. However, the committee disagreed and said the money used to buy vehicles was from the Provincial Treasury.
On Friday the Democratic Alliance (DA) in Limpopo approached Monyemoratho to summon Makhurupetje along with officials from her department, Greater Tubatse Municipality, Provincial Treasury and the Housing Development Agency (HDA) to account for purchase of the land.

Story: ENDY SENYATSI
>>endy@observer.co.za