Shock at R52m mobile clinic deal

THE KwaZulu-Natal legislature’s health portfolio committee says it has made “astonishing discoveries” of irregular expenditure related to mobile clinics, including a three-year R52.5 million lease.

The “astonishing discoveries” detailed by committee chairman Yusuf Bhamjee were widely reported on by the media three years ago and are the subject of an investigation by the public protector.

“In a meeting (on Friday) the portfolio committee uncovered shocking wastage of taxpayers’ money by the KZN health department… when it held its normal oversight meeting,” he said.

The department had spent R50 million on buying about 95 23-seater vehicles. “The department further leased one more bus for about R1m a month for 36 months at a cost of about R52m. The contract ended in 2016 but was extended from April to July 2016,” he said.

The now defunct SA Press Association (Sapa) had reported in January 2015 that the KZN health department had awarded the R61 million tender to two companies – Mzansi Lifecare and Mobile Satellite Technologies.

Mzansi Lifecare was to lease a truck and trailer with an X-ray machine and ultrasound to the department for R52.5m over three years. Mzansi Lifecare, was created 17 days before the tender was advertised in June 2012.

Former KZN health department head Sibongile Zungu signed off on the lease in 2013, agreeing the department would pay Mzansi Lifecare R1.5m a month to lease the vehicle without staff. In 2015, it emerged the department could have bought outright four similar units from the US. “You’d wasted fourand-a-half million (US dollars),” Richard M Dinse, vice-president of US firm, LifeLine Mobile, that builds such vehicles, said at the time.