​Qaqambile Mdledle
Gauteng Premier, David Makhura has welcomed the Special Tribunal's correction to the judgment it made in December last year that implicated him in the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) corruption contracts by the provincial Department of Health.
In a judgment handed down on 10 December 2020, Judge Mothle stated that Kabelo Lehoenya, the former Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the Department of Health, claimed that Premier Makhura gave her names of companies to be appointed as service providers for PPE.
On 27 January 2021, Premier Makhura, made an application to the Special Tribunal in terms of Rule 42, to seek a correction that the CFO, Kabelo Lehloenya did not say she received names of who should get the PPE contracts from Makhura himself, but rather from his office which could have been any number of people.
Judge Mothle has since accepted the request by the Premier and has corrected the error.
"I have on receipt of the Premiers application, realised that the omission of the word "Office of" before the Premier and  "the MEC"  in the judgment context is capable of being construed to mean that the Tribunal has found or decided that it was the Premier personally or the MEC personally, who supplied the names. There was no such decision or finding made on the allegations" said Mothle. 
Premier Makhura said he was happy that the statement has been corrected making it clear that there were no allegations made against him in the PPE procurement irregularities.
"We view any allegation of malfeasance in a serious light, and in this regard, we have requested the SIU to investigate the allegations that the Office of the Premier was involved in procurement irregularities in the Department of Health" said Makhura.