Medscheme says it has evidence – supplied by whistle-blowers – that tender processes used by Bonitas Medical Fund to award contracts, including to Momentum Health and Private Health Administrators (PHA), were allegedly “manipulated and compromised”, reports News24.
Two months ago Medscheme approached the Gauteng High Court to stop Bonitas from awarding certain tenders, alleging in court papers that former AfroCentric executives had conspired to improperly influence procurement decisions made by Bonitas.
Medscheme is owned by AfroCentric, a Sanlam subsidiary.
However, last month, despite the pending court proceedings, Bonitas announced that it had appointed Momentum Health as its new administrator, effective 1 June, and that PHA would provide managed care services from that date.
Medscheme has been contracted to provide administration and managed care services to Bonitas since 1982, but in April 2025, Bonitas opted to issue tenders.
Now Medscheme says it has filed a replying affidavit to its original application to interdict Bonitas from implementing various tenders to urgently prevent their implementation.
It accuses Bonitas’ procurement processes of being unlawful and alleges that its trustees breached their fiduciary duties, risking irreversible prejudice to the scheme and its members.
Medscheme also cites a pending investigation into Bonitas initiated in February 2025 by the Council for Medical Schemes (CMS) over the awarding of contracts to former AfroCentric executives and their associates.
One was a lucrative marketing deal awarded to Agile Alternative Business Solutions, which secured it after Bonitas terminated a previous contract with an AfroCentric subsidiary.
“Where credible allegations of unlawfulness exist, and where regulatory scrutiny has been triggered, prudence, legality and fairness demand that implementation pauses until those processes have run their course,” said AfroCentric CEO Gerald van Wyk, a board member of Medscheme, in the replying affidavit.
“Once the new contracts are implemented, the prejudice to Bonitas and its members flowing from a fatally flawed procurement process becomes irreversible,” he added. “A claim for damages cannot retrospectively restore the integrity of a compromised tender process, nor can it unwind the operational disruption and instability that will result.”
Proof from whistleblowers
The affidavit claims whistleblowers provided evidence that the awarding of the Bonitas contract to Agile in 2024 was unlawful – with email trails and supporting documents allegedly showing that Bonitas insiders deliberately excluded Medscheme from procurement processes.
Its application seeks an interim interdict to suspend the tenders until the CMS completes a forensic investigation. The hearing is set to take place on 3 March.
The CMS confirmed in November last year that the initial results of a Section 43 analysis showed that allegations against Bonitas warranted further investigation, Daily Maverick reports.
The council has since instituted a section 44 investigation with extensive powers to investigate governance, procurement and compliance failures. A section 44 investigation is an extraordinary regulatory intervention triggered only where serious governance, procurement and fiduciary failures are suspected.
Restructuring
Medscheme has cited allegations of manipulated bidding processes and conflicts of interest linked to prior distribution tenders under a restructuring drive known as Project StepAhead.
Court papers reference claims that insiders and associated entities helped shape request-for-proposal documents that advantaged certain bidders. Evidence includes a funding commitment tied to rival bidder PHA.
In his affidavit, Van Wyk pointed out that implementation of the tenders awarded and under dispute is not a neutral or reversible step.
“It entails the transfer of administration, managed care functions, data systems, provider arrangements, authorisation protocols, payment flows and regulatory reporting obligations.
Once these processes are live, unwinding them would be operationally complex, costly, disruptive to members and providers, and likely to prejudice third parties who are not before court.”
The bombshell
Van Wyk confirmed Medscheme was in possession of documents supplied by whistleblowers and reported on by journalist Michael Avery in October in Business Day, in an article titled: “Whistle-blower detonates bombshell on Bonitas”.
Medscheme attorney Brandon Starr, an associate at Werksmans Attorneys, had immediately sent the file supplied by the whistleblower to Michelle Bonthuys of FACTS Consulting, a cyber forensics and data specialist firm.
Bonitas signed a short consulting contract in late 2023 with a company called DP Investments, represented by consultant Tobie du Preez. His job was to give strategic advice to help Bonitas improve its products, grow membership, design new options and deal with service providers.
He was given access to sensitive Bonitas information but required to keep it confidential and avoid conflicts of interest. The contract was later extended to run until June 2024 under mostly the same terms.
However, according to the whistle-blower evidence in the court papers, Du Preez allegedly used this confidential financial and strategy information to help another company, Agile, prepare a winning bid for a Bonitas tender linked to Project StepAhead.
This tender involved marketing and distribution services. Agile’s pricing and plans reportedly matched Bonitas’s internal budgets, giving it an unfair advantage.
The documents also claim Du Preez helped draft the tender documents while advising Bonitas, and that people linked to another bidder, PHA, also helped shape the request for proposals. Despite knowing Du Preez’s links to Agile, Bonitas still awarded the tender to Agile.
There are further claims that steps were taken to hide this conflict of interest by using a proxy signatory on Agile’s bid paperwork.
Performance ‘not the issue’
Medscheme has denied it lost Bonitas contracts due to poor performance, saying the medical scheme’s own reporting proved it had delivered substantial value.
It also argued that Bonitas has failed to produce a credible transition plan to allow it to hand over contracts to new service providers within the specified timelines without materially prejudicing the scheme’s members, data integrity and administration.
Bonitas, which is opposing the legal proceedings, told News24 its response would be outlined during court proceedings, that the media statement from Afrocentric is improper, as its subsidiary is currently involved in a matter which is sub judice.
The CMS said that “this is a matter between the two entities, and we will monitor the space”.
News24 article – Medscheme claims it has evidence Bonitas tender was tainted (Restricted access)
Daily Maverick article – The numbers behind the Medscheme/Bonitas bombshell litigation (Open access)
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Bonitas cuts ties with Medscheme
Medscheme launches urgent bid to pause Bonitas move
Watchdog deepens Bonitas investigation