Life Esidi meni tragedy: a recap of the year’s developments

• Published date: 23 December 2023
• Author: Zelda Venter zelda.venter@inl.co.za
• Publication title: Saturday Star

Nearly eight years later and following an inquest into the deaths, which began virtually on July 18, 2021, Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, Judge Mmonoa Teffo is due to recommend to the National prosecuting Authority whether anyone should be held criminally liable for the death

She is expected to deliver her judgment early next year.

Two health officials and the owner of an NGO will especially await the verdict, as Section27, which represented 44 of the victims’ families, called on the court to recommend that they be charged with culpable homicide.

They argued that former Gauteng Health MEC Qedani Mahlangu, former director of the Mental Health Directorate, Dr Makgabo Manamela, and the owner of Precious Angels NGO, Ethel Ncube, should face prosecution for alleged involvement in the deaths.

In terms of the Inquests Act, the judge must determine the cause of the deaths of the 141 mental health-care users who died after they were moved from Life Esidimeni into unlicensed and unprepared NGOs.

Section27 will present its argument (based on the evidence already before the court) that the deaths of at least 10 of the mental health-care users were caused by the conduct of Mahlangu, Manamela and Ncube.

The arguments before the court included that Mahlangu made the initial decision to terminate the Life Esidimeni contract. She then continued to make a series of reckless decisions in relation to the project for months, while chairing project team meetings.

Section27 said this included putting pressure on the Gauteng Department of Health officials to implement the termination (of the) project over an extremely short period.

“Mahlangu made these decisions having been warned of the risks of termination, the impracticalities of continuing with the implementation of the project, and the insufficiency of measures in place to mitigate the risks and impracticalities,” it submitted.

It also argued that Manamela was the de facto project leader and directly involved in implementation of the termination project.

“She signed licences for NGOs that she knew had not been properly assessed and then failed to ensure that they were paid timeously. She was warned both before and during the implementation of the project about risks and failed to mitigate these risks sufficiently,” Section27 said.

Ncube, owner of Precious Angels, should also be held accountable, the court was told. This institution saw the deaths of 20 mental health-care users, the first of whom died less than two weeks...