Public Works & Infrastructure Minister Dean Macpherson has called for the Independent Development Trust’s new board to order lifestyle audits into its senior management, currently hovering under a cloud for alleged corruption in the awarding of a dodgy multimillion rand oxygen plants contract.
In October last year, Daily Maverick’s Scorpio revealed alleged irregularities in the R836m IDT project to procure and install oxygen plants at government hospitals countrywide.
The IDT was acting as an implementing agent for the National Department of Health (NDoH), but the latter has since backed out of the contract since questions were raised about the tender process.
Scorpio’s original revelations mainly focused on the appointment of Bulkeng, a “ghost company” lacking the necessary regulatory certification to work with medical equipment.
On Sunday, Macpherson provided an update on the contracts, saying PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers), whom he had tasked with investigating the tender, has faced several hurdles since launching its probe in late January.
It was originally envisaged that it would have wrapped up its work in March, but the previous IDT board and certain IDT staffers have allegedly been doing their utmost to hamper the investigation.
“At an introductory meeting between PwC investigators and the board of the IDT, various IDT officials and management and many of the trustees appointed before my tenure, made unjustified demands as prerequisites to cooperating with the investigation,” he said.
He added that the minutes of the meeting showed the previous IDT board and its officials had insisted the DPWI had no legal right to appoint PwC to probe the R836m oxygen plants project.
Macpherson said this demonstrated “a shocking disregard for accountability”.
Additionally, the PwC investigators have still not obtained from the IDT all of the records they have requested for their investigation.
“In a briefing with PwC investigators on Friday, they said that because of the delay caused by (the IDT’s) demands, they had only received documentation from the IDT a day or two earlier and that the information they had asked for was incomplete,” said Macpherson.
At this stage, the investigation was only about 25% done – it would have been concluded by now had it not been for the IDT’s alleged refusal to fully cooperate.
However, the final report is expected to be available by the end of May, the Minister said.
The Hawks are also investigating the oxygen plants project, but it is not clear when the law-enforcement body will wrap up its work.
Audits
In addition to the PwC investigation, Macpherson now wants broad-ranging lifestyle audits of the IDT’s top management, including CEO Tebogo Malaka.
“I will be recommending that the (IDT) board authorise lifestyle audits across the senior personnel of the IDT,” he said.
The IDT board has only recently again become quorate after it had been functioning for a number of months without the requisite number of board members.
Earlier this year, the Minister reappointed several former board members who had left the IDT board during the tenure of former Minister Sihle Zikalala, now Macpherson’s deputy at the DPWI.
They include Zimbini Hill, the IDT’s former board chairperson, and Professor Raymond Nnaemeka Nkado, former dean of the faculty of Engineering at Wits University.
The newly constituted board will consider Macpherson’s recommendation for lifestyle audits when it meets this week.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
PwC probes multimillion oxygen plants project
Dodgy R836m oxygen plants deal cancelled
'Alleged death' of key player in R836m oxygen tender project