1. Hon. members, the MF will focus on the COVID-19 Pandemic. Our workplaces, in both the public and private sectors is riskier than before and the use of appropriate PPE’s saves lives.
2. In each department we have to ask, do we have enough PPE’s; is it the right kind, up –to-date and at the right price. The MF acknowledges this is a crisis but our planning should never encourage dishonesty and this is the crux of the debate and the AG’s request for intervention.
3. Given this background, the MF has requested full reports on PPE tenders in view of the fact that civil servants, especially essential front-line workers like teachers and healthcare workers have fallen ill and succumbed. The source of the infection is one thing, the provision of appropriate PPE is another whilst workplace infection prevention and personal safety is yet another.
4. With this background the DA’s motion is important at this critical juncture in terms of SCM irregularities, skewed PPE distribution, poor quality of PPE’s and inflated pricing by PPE tenderpreneurs. Under these circumstances, “Will KZN get value for money”? That’s the question: The MF believes that we can still afford the Executive more time until Appropriations this November before making concrete statements, save to say that PPE’s are life-saving for our workplace heroes and vulnerable citizens.
5. Therefore, three things are important firstly, we must acknowledge that our Cabinet is practising “We Do Right, even when no one is looking”; secondly that tenderpreneurs who value their privileges over principles, end up losing both and those we employ in SCM and in Senior Management must be carefully recruited on the basis of having learn’t to obey in order to command in such a crucial positions.
6. Premier, notwithstanding your appreciated interventions currently, if these 3 areas are weak, we will become an endangered society. The MF appreciates that the investigations have started.
7. Thank you.

Hon. S. Thakur- Rajbansi