Pretoria - A suspect was allegedly caught red-handed with stolen equipment by security personnel outside the vacant AngloGold Ashanti Hospital in the West Rand, the health department said on Wednesday.
The department vacated the facility on March 31, 2022 following its decommissioning.
While the other suspect got arrested, the other two managed to flee the scene.
“The culprits are reported to have forcibly gained entry to the hospital, where they stole copper cables, gas stoves, monitors, mattresses and vandalised two state-of-the-art digital X-ray machines,” said the department’s spokesperson, Kwara Kekana.
Kekana said the asset management team was undertaking an inventory of both moveable and non-moveable assets to ascertain the extent of the damage and theft and to allow for the remaining equipment to be relocated as planned.
In September 2021, the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) was granted an order by the Special Tribunal to freeze millions of rand held by companies that had been appointed by the Gauteng Provincial Government to refurbish the AngloGold Ashanti Hospital.
This is after companies looted R500 million meant to refurbish the hospital, which was donated by the mining company to the Gauteng provincial government to treat Covid-19 patients.
The initial contract was R50m, but the costs ballooned to R500m.
When the department appointed the service providers, the hospital was not in use. The Health Department intended to use the hospital to accommodate seriously ill patients admitted for treatment of Covid-19.
In November last year, Gauteng Health MEC Nomathemba Mokgethi revealed that only eight patients who were critically ill with Covid-19 had been treated at the hospital, which cost more than R540m to refurbish.
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