By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Gauteng Health MEC Nomathemba Mokgethi says an internal department audit flagged the need to improve supply chain management processes at Tembisa Hospital a year ago.
Replying to a question in the provincial legislature on Wednesday, Mokgethi revealed that the department’s financial chief sanctioned a random audit in August last year.
Mokgethi said recommendations were made after the internal audit process, with an aim to improve business operations and address shortfalls.
Some recommendations included that the management of the facility should improve the effectiveness of its internal controls over supply chain management processes to ensure compliance with prescripts and applicable legislation and also that the accounting officer should implement consequence management for officials who contravened laws and regulations.
Mokgethi said the audit report was shared with suspended Tembisa hospital CEO Ashley Mthunzi and management of the hospital to ensure they were able to act on it.
She said the hospital has since put in place a mitigation plan which includes appointing a bid adjudication committee and appointing additional human resources.
Mokgethi added that the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has also been appointed to investigate the allegations into serious allegations concerning improper procurement and payment of service providers at the hospital with urgency.
She said its internal control measures were not a forensic audit, and therefore it was important to allow the SIU to conclude its work.
Mokgethi has also confirmed that ANC bigwig in Ekurhuleni, Sello Sekhokho, scored R14.5 million in 55 contracts with the hospital in the past three years.
She said Sekhokho was selling cleaning material, protective clothing, medical consumables, office supplies and groceries.
Sekhokho is the treasurer-general of the ANC’s Ekurhuleni region. His three companies – Kaizen Projects, Nokokhokho Medical Supplies and Bollanoto Security – got R2.8 million in contracts in 2019, R4.2 million in 2020, and a whopping R7.5 million last year when Dr Ashley Mthunzi took over as hospital CEO.
Mthunzi is now suspended by the department after an investigation revealed that murdered whistle-blower Babita Deokaran had flagged R850 million worth of contracts at the hospital as “possibly fraudulent”.
DA’s spokesperson on health, Jack Bloom, said it was strange that Sekhokho’s companies sold such a variety of goods to the hospital, including cleaning material, office supplies and even groceries.
Some of the medical equipment he sold to the hospital was “grossly overpriced”, Bloom said, and “it is suspicious that all the payments were less than R500 000, which means they don’t go out on tender and are signed off by the hospital CEO”.
Mokgethi said the “current management at Tembisa Hospital is not aware of any irregularities with regards to these companies”.
“The department, through its risk management, will conduct an audit on payments made at the facility. This will provide evidence of transactions that may require forensic investigation, should there be evidence enough to link up officials who may have conducted irregularities. The process of conducting forensic investigation is centralised in the office of the premier,” she added.
Bloom said: “Sekhoko has scored massively over the years from contracts with just one hospital. I have asked follow-up questions about how much his companies got from other hospitals as well. But this is just the tip of the iceberg.