Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi who scored a moral victory over the African National Congress (ANC’s) pro-Government of National Unity (GNU) faction after efforts to censure him for critical remarks about president Cyril Ramaphosa’s GNU failed now has AfriForum in the cross-hairs.
This comes after the Afrikaner civil rights group, AfriForum called for Lesufi to go.
The group implicated him in a corruption and money laundering scandal.
“Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi is alleged to be a central figure in a massive cover-up of rampant corruption, money laundering and fraud that has cost the provincial government hundreds of millions of rand that was allocated to the Department of Social Development (DSD) to support needy NGOs,” Afriforum said.
The organisation’s Private Prosecution Unit claimed that it has a whistle-blower and has been briefed to ensure that the involved officials and their accomplices, including politicians, are held criminally accountable for the nearly decade-long heist.
Lesufi’s response to these accusations was a post on X (formerly Twitter): “Try harder.”
“As has been widely reported, between September 2023 and January this year the DSD suspended 13 implicated officials. However, their suspensions have been lifted and they are back at work,” continued AfriForum.
Its whistle-blower claimed that Lesufi received the reports, but instead of acting on them, he allowed a law firm to examine the findings and absolve the implicated officials and ended the mandate of the law firm appointed to handle the disciplinary hearings of the 13 officials.
Lesufi has frequently denied accusations of corruption.
On Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh’s podcast SNWX, the politician said that there have been people recruited to say inflammatory things about him.
“They feel that there is nothing tangible that they can paint about me. You know a leader that is not accused of being corrupt in South Africa a the leader so they must find a way of dealing with this issue,” he said.
IOL