The Life Esidimeni inquest continued on Monday at the Pretoria High Court with former Gauteng health head of department, Tiego Ephraim Selebano, testifying.
This after numerous hold-ups by the then director in the mental health unit Makgoba Manamela last week.
According to media reports, Manamela submitted an affidavit that requested for a postponement, saying she was not ready to appear due to ill-health. A warrant of arrest was issued, but was suspended when a doctor’s note was issued for her absence. Manamela must show up for court next on Wednesday, or face arrest.
During the inquest on Monday, Selebano was asked about the circumstances that led to the Life Esidimeni tragedy, because he signed a letter terminating the contract that the department of health had with Life Esidimeni.
After the termination of the contract, patients were moved to non-government organisations that lacked resources, resulting in the deaths of more than 100 mental health patients.
Selebano admitted to the act, and said the decision was due to a lack of funding, alleging that the department was struggling financially when former health MEC Qedani Mahlangu was in charge.
“The first time I heard that Esidimeni patients have passed away was in August 2016, it was in the newspapers and the political parties in the legislature were raising the matter,” he said.
“Ordinarily, myself and the MEC met and we reported the matter to the police. We also agreed that we should have postmortems of all the patients. We wanted to know what had happened.”
Selebano is part of the three former health officials expected to account for the disorderly transfer project.
The inquest will reveal if the implicated officials should be held criminally accountable for the deaths of 144 mental health patients and 21 patients who were confirmed missing since 2016.
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