R5.6bn in Covid corruption compounds province’s woes
The more than R5.6-billion in Covid-19-related corruption cases probed in Gauteng, including a R500-million, 175-bed hospital that is gathering dust, have compounded the province’s woes as the third infection wave rages.
This week, the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) confirmed to the Mail & Guardian that it was still investigating the R500-million Anglogold Ashanti Hospital in Carletonville, west of Johannesburg, which was meant to add 175 new beds to the province by June last year.
The SIU’S probe into alleged corruption at the hospital is in conjunction with the more than R5.6-billion the unit said it was investigating in Gauteng, from the R6.3-billion the provincial health department spent on Covid-19-related procurement from April 2020 to March 2021.
This comes as the Gauteng health department confirmed this week that the alleged “colossal waste of money” that is the R350-million Nasrec Covid-19 field hospital would remain closed, as the province reeled from infections ranging from 6 200 to 8 600 daily new cases this week.
The R500-million figure for the Carletonville hospital was revealed in May last year by infrastructure development MEC Tasneem Motara, who said that the facility was expected to have been handed over to the provincial health department in June last year.
Last month, Gauteng Premier David Makhura finally opened the Carletonville hospital to much fanfare.
But according to an oral reply in the legislature from health MEC Nomathemba Mokgethi to the Democratic Alliance’s (DA) Jack Bloom, the R500-million hospital has still not been staffed due to an alleged lack of an approved organogram, and that “staffing depended on the availability of budget”.
SIU spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago confirmed that the unit was probing alleged corruption at the hospital, but added: “We will not be in a position to comment on this matter at this stage as the investigation is still ongoing.”
In January, the M&G reported that the SIU had sent a letter to the Gauteng government alerting it to the unit’s probe into the hospital, relating to a slew of irregularities of which the SIU had been informed. The letter was signed by the SIU head, Advocate Andy Mothibi.
“Payments to the eight contractors working on site were stopped pending
the outcome of the SIU investigation, which has caused severe unhappiness with the relevant contractors.
“Certain of the contractors [are] threatening to take the law into their own hands by stripping [or] breaking down and removing the equipment (including very expensive medical equipment) from site, because they have not been paid for their work,” Mothibi’s letter reads.
On 2 June, in a SIU presentation to parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa), the unit said it had finalised R505-million in corruption
probes related to Covid-19 procurement, and had R6.3-billion worth of ongoing investigations in the province as of April this year.
The SIU further detailed flagrant disregard for procurement regulations and laws.
“It appears that persons in positions of authority within [the] provincial government believed that the declaration of a ‘national state of disaster’ meant that all procurement is automatically now conducted on an ‘emergency’ basis and without compliance with any of the normal prescripts regulating public sector procurement. But […] even ‘emergency’ procurement must still be conducted in accordance with certain minimum prescripts to ensure, in as far as possible, that such processes remain fair, equitable, transparent, competitive and cost effective,” the SIU’S Mothibi told Scopa in a report.
Meanwhile, in a statement this week, Gauteng health department spokesperson Kwara Kekana said the R350-million Nasrec field hospital would remain decommissioned, as was announced by Mokgethi in February.
Bloom asserted in September last year that the field hospital was a “colossal waste of money” because, at the time, only 604 patients had been admitted at a cost of around R500000 a person.
Announcing Nasrec’s decommissioning, Mokgethi said in February that there were no longer any scientific, statistical or clinical reasons to keep the facility open.
“The closure of Nasrec Field Hospital will not have a major impact in the treatment of Covid-19 patients,” Mokgethi said.
Detailed questions the M&G sent to the provincial health department about the Carletonville hospital, as well as Gauteng’s bed shortages, were not answered despite acknowledgements of receipt and promises to do so.