A pandemic far worse than Covid-19

THE statistics tell us that the Covid19 pandemic will sicken 9 000 out of every million South Africans.

The ANC-20 corruption pandemic is far worse.

It will make every single one of us sick to our stomachs.

At least half of the R10.4 billion that the government set aside for emergency Covid-19 relief is under criminal investigation. When the process is completed, it is conceivable that more than two out of three rand set aside to care for the vulnerable, the sick and the dying will be shown to have been misused – either stolen in non-delivered contracts or skimmed through inflated prices.

I urge every reader to access the detailed tender awards released by the Treasury this week online at ocpo.treasury.gov.za/COVID19/

Read, weep and wail.

The information varies substantially in its scope and usefulness. For example, in the Eastern Cape, there are no details of what was bought, in what numbers, and using what units of measure were the costs arrived at, making the information useless.

Such obfuscation is doubtless deliberate. The Special Investigations Unit (SIU) already has just under R2bn in Covid-19 tenders under investigation in that province.

But to whet your appetite let’s take a random sampling of how some of the provincial governments spent their Treasury windfall.

In the Free State, plastic surgical gloves were procured at between R234 and R356 a pair. This kind of mark-up of an item costing cents per unit wholesale, was pretty much par for the course in other provinces.

In KwaZulu-Natal, Velvet Rope Lifestyle provided “catering for the homeless” at R115 a meal.

The biggest item of expenditure in the KZN premier’s office was R475 000 paid to Euphoric Technologies for “decanting, rebottling and delivery” of 25 000ml of sanitiser at R19/ml. Sounds a good deal until it dawns that KZN paid almost R500 000 to rebottle

25l – which is what 25 000ml is – of ethanol-laced soap water.

Interestingly, in KZN, more than 57% of the province’s R2bn in emergency funds was spent on infrastructural projects, which is not what it was intended for.

One can carry on like this, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. But what is obvious is that contrary to government propaganda that black empowerment regulations are necessary as a counterweight to white monopoly capital, that is not what is happening. Few of the tender beneficiaries are recognisable commercial entities, complete with premises, staff and equipment.

Many, if not most, appear simply to be intermediaries.

That Covid-19 procurement has been a feeding frenzy of unparalleled proportions and no track record is required.

The national Treasury’s controls over the emergency fund disbursements are poor. There is no uniformity in what information is provided and how it is presented, which makes accountability difficult.

What is important about this release of this information – aside from President Cyril Ramaphosa expressing shock and promising the ANC will do better in future

– is it’s a rare chance to penetrate the murkiness that surrounds the hundreds of billions of rand flowing through the state’s procurement processes. Covid-19 will kill less than 2% of the people it infects. ANC-20 may kill an entire nation.