Former Gauteng health MEC and ANC chief whip Brian Hlongwa. (Photo: Gallo Images / Beeld / Felix Dlangamandla) 
Former Gauteng health MEC and provincial legislature chief whip Brian Hlongwa has died after a short illness.
His death was confirmed by Gauteng ANC provincial task team spokesperson Mzi Khumalo on Tuesday night.
The party said he was an activist whose passion for the liberation Struggle was inspired by Steve Biko and other political leaders from Soweto.
Hlongwa served in a number of ANC and government roles, including in the Gauteng legislature where he was the party’s chief whip and also MEC for health, a post he left under controversy. During apartheid, he was involved in underground ANC and uMkhonto weSizwe structures before 1990, and was also active in the ANC Youth League.
“Because of his involvement in those underground structures he became part of the security machinery provided to the late president Nelson Mandela in the early days of his release from jail,” Khumalo said.
At the time of his death, Hlongwa was facing corruption charges linked to a Special Investigating Unit (SIU) report that implicated him in alleged fraudulent and corrupt transactions worth R1.2-billion in the provincial health department during his tenure as MEC.
In 2021, Hlongwa, his wife Joeline Davids-Hlongwa and six others were charged with fraud, corruption and money laundering, as well as what the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (the Hawks) described as a pattern of racketeering activity against the provincial health department.
Hlongwa and his co-accused were charged under the Prevention of Organised Crime Act for offences allegedly committed between 2006 and 2010.
At the time of being charged, Daily Maverick reported that the State alleged that Hlongwa, Richard John Payne and a small company, 3P Consulting Pty Ltd, acting with others, were guilty of contravening section 2(1)(f) of the Prevention of Organised Crime Act.
They allegedly participated in racketeering activities related to profiting from obtaining and securing tenders and contracts from the Gauteng health department.
An SIU report released to the public in 2018 found that there existed corrupt relationships between Hlongwa, various departmental officials and 3P Consulting, its directors and a number of companies related to 3P Consulting. 3P Consulting helped Hlongwa to buy property and paid for international flights for him and others.
In one of the most ostentatious of the various bribes, 3P Consulting arranged and paid for a luxury spa treatment for Hlongwa and his wife, complete with limousine transport, according to the SIU report.
Hlongwa consistently and publicly denied all the allegations against him. He and his co-accused were expected to go on trial in April 2026. DM