By Mashamba Media
news@alexreporter.co.za
Activists and Citizens Forum (ACF) says it smells a rat of corruption with the contract of the Gender Based Violence Call Center.
ACF spokesperson, Dennis Bloem said the deputy Minister of Social Welfare, Ms Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu, “claims that the call center has collapsed. She is adamant that she was never informed about the way that tender was concluded or approved with Vodacom”.
“The Minister of Social Welfare Lindiwe Zulu rejects the claims saying that her Deputy is wrong and the call center is fully functional and denies that the call center has collapsed,” he said.
Bloem said that this situation “must never be allowed in our government where a Minister and a Deputy Minister of the same Ministry contradict each other in public”.
Bloem further argued that it was totally unacceptable to them.
“It is very clear to us that very critical information was kept away from the deputy minister, and this had to do with a massive contract for this call center.
“This call center saga is very serious. Gender Based Violence has been declared a pandemic by the government, and millions of rands of taxpayers’ money is pumped into the fight against gender base violence.
“We are calling upon President Cyril Ramaphosa to institute an investigation into these very serious allegations and place both Minister Lindiwe Zulu and Deputy Minister Henrietta Bogopane-Zulu on special leave for the duration of the investigation,” he said.
