SIU to investigate R108m frail care tender

PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma has signed a proclamation authorising the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) to probe the R108-million tender awarded to Eastern Cape Frail Care for the care of 240 patients in Port Elizabeth’s only fully state-funded frail care centres.

The proclamation was published in the Government Gazette last week.

According to the notice, the SIU will investigate the possible non-competitive nature of the tender and any unlawful or improper conduct by officials or employees of the department and its service providers.

The contract with Eastern Cape Frail Care, a subsidiary of Life Healthcare, amounted to R26-million in 2014 – or just more than R9 000 a patient a month.

The next year, the price almost doubled to R50-million. Last year, it increased again – to R54-million.

This means that in two years the patient subsidy rose to R18 763.

In June last year, the department gave notice that it would not extend the contract but would, instead, move frail care patients to homes and facilities run by non-profit organisations.

In December, the Port Elizabeth High Court ordered that the two centres, Lorraine Frail Care and Algoa Frail Care, be kept open until the court could be presented with a plan on where and how patients would be moved.

Bea Hackula, who was the head of the department when the 2015-16 contract was signed, said she welcomed the investigation. “I have nothing to hide,” she said. She was moved to the Department of Cooperative Governance but dismissed by premier Phumulo Masualle last year.

Hackula said the investigation should include asking the department why it had discarded her plan to establish a dedicated state frail care in unused hospitals.

The DA’s Bobby Stevenson said: “What the public wants to know is why has the contract doubled from R9 000 to R18 000.”

Social Development MEC Nancy Sihlwayi said in response to one of Stevenson’s questions in the provincial legislature in January that she would ask for an investigation into the contract.

Her spokesman, Mzukisi Solani, did not respond to a request for comment yesterday.

Life Esidimeni director Etienne Petersen could also not be reached for comment.

The former director of Eastern Cape Frail Care, Dr Nilesh Patel, who has since left the company, had said previously that he was not aware of any irregularities in the contract and that two cheaper options had been offered to the department, which it declined.