Probe into R61m KZN mobile clinic tender welcomed

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Published May 6, 2016

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Durban – Political parties in KwaZulu-Natal on Friday welcomed the announcement that Public Protector Thuli Madonsela will be investigating a controversial R61 million tender that saw the KwaZulu-Natal health department lease a mobile clinic unit for R52.5 million.

The Inkatha Freedom Party’s provincial health spokeswoman Ncamisile Nkwanyana said: “We have been asking for this for a long time. We are happy but concerned about what is going to happen after she retires. We want her to investigate this before she leaves office.”

Madonsela is due to finish her term as Public protector later this year.

On Thursday evening, Madonsela’s spokesperson Kgalalelo Masibi said: “The Public Protector has taken a decision to investigate the tender.”

Masibi said she could not comment further on the tender or the investigations.

The announcement follows complaints lodged, first by the Inkatha Freedom Party in June last year, and then another by the Democratic Alliance in August last year.

In October last year, Masibi confirmed to the African News Agency (ANA) that the Public Protector had launched a preliminary investigation ?to determine whether a full investigation of the tender was warranted. I?t was the outcome of this preliminary investigation that had led to the decision to conduct a full investigation.

Nkwanyana accused the KwaZulu-Natal health MEC Sibongiseni Dhlomo of having ignored questions about the tender.

“We have asked him many times; in the legislature. He didn’t answer anything (sic),” she said.

The DA’s health spokesman Dr Imran Keeka also welcomed the investigation.

“The DA welcomes the announcement that the Public Protector has launched a full blown investigation in what seems to be a massive swindle of public funds,” said Keeka.

Keeka urged the health department to co-operate in supplying the necessary documents to Madonsela.

“They refused to comply with a PAIA application that the DA submitted last year in an attempt to obtain the tender documents. This has still not been officially complied with, making such non compliance with the law seem deliberate. We must ask yet again, what are they hiding?” he questioned.

He said that he hoped that if the investigation revealed what he strongly suspected was corruption, then the law should be brought to bear on all those involved.

“We hope that it will not result in a simple ‘sorry – I made a mistake’ or no action taken as we have seen in the matter of the Addington Cancer machine saga,” he said.

Economic Freedom Front provincial deputy chairman Jackie Shandu said: “This [tender] is insane. They must be investigated.”

The now defunct South African Press Association (Sapa) reported in January 2015 that the KwaZulu-Natal health department had awarded the R61 million tender to two companies — Mzansi Lifecare and Mobile Satellite Technologies.

Mzansi Lifecare was awarded a tender to lease a truck and trailer, equipped with a standard X-ray machine and ultrasound, to the department for R52.5 million over a period of three years.

The company, Mzansi Lifecare, was created a mere 17 days before the tender, ZNB 9281 / 2012-H, was advertised in the Government Gazette in June 2012.

Former KwaZulu-Natal health department head Dr Sibongile Zungu signed off on the lease in August 2013, agreeing that the department would pay Mzansi Lifecare R1.5 million every month until August this year to lease the vehicle without staff.

When the tender made headlines in January 2015, it emerged that the department could have purchased outright four similar units from the United States.

“That kind of money is crazy. If it cost that much, you already wasted four-and-a-half million [dollars],” was the reaction from Richard M Dinse, vice president of LifeLine Mobile, a company based in the US state of Ohio that manufactures such vehicles.

“For the price they were charged, LifeLine could have delivered four identical vans to Durban. And, it wouldn’t be on a lease agreement; they would own all four of the vans.”

He said the company could supply a 12-metre vehicle with a comparable floor plan with an X-ray and ultrasound machine for about US$1.1 (about R12.5 million at the time he commented). That price, he said, would include a tent, training and warranty costs.

Comment from the department was not immediately available on Friday, although department spokesman Sam Mkhwanazi has said previously that he could not comment on the tender as it was also the subject of a Hawks investigation.

African News Agency

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