Deputy Department of Health DG Nicholas Crisp appeared before Parliament last week to account for the allegations in an investigation published on 27 September on the contentious communications tender, but instead, he misrepresented the allegations to make it easier to defend, reports News24, which has analysed his most misleading claims and fact-checked them.
The News24 investigation detailed, with evidence, how seemingly uncapped contracts awarded to KMTV Media and Dots Design Agency drew millions from critical health services.
News24 reports that instead of accounting, Crisp deflected and mischaracterised the reporting, making it seem more extreme and more unclear, and that he had, in fact, misled Parliament.
Claim 1: News24 alleged an ‘advanced payment’ of R52m
WHAT CRISP TOLD PARLIAMENT: Crisp said that News24 alleged “the department paid R52m advanced presumably to one of these suppliers”.
WHAT NEWS24 REPORTED: Our investigation explicitly described the R52m as a commitment – as a purchase order signed off by himself and the department’s spokesperson, Foster Mohale. When News24 previously put this to Mohale, it was Mohale who said a purchase order “does not translate into advanced payment”. News24 was asking about a R52m commitment, not a payment. The investigation did report that finance officials asked whether a separate, smaller payment was an advanced payment, to which no one responded – but that is a record of what officials asked, not what News24 alleged.
VERDICT: Misleading. Crisp reframed our reporting of a “commitment” as an “advanced payment”, implying money changed hands – a more extreme allegation than was made, and therefore easier to defend.
Claim 2: News24 said invoices were paid without work being done
WHAT CRISP TOLD PARLIAMENT: Crisp said News24 alleged “there was payment of invoices without proof of work done or performed”.
WHAT NEWS24 REPORTED: News24 did not allege that invoices were paid without work being done. Our investigation included photographs of work produced under KMTV’s contract. The article’s concern was the procurement process, the appointments and the uncapped expenditure from critical health care programmes – not whether work was performed.
VERDICT: False. Crisp’s rebuttal addressed an allegation that the investigation did not make.
Claim 3: News24 alleged a conflict of interest by Mohale
WHAT CRISP TOLD PARLIAMENT: Crisp said “questions were raised about the role of its spokesperson, Foster Mohale, on the tender committees” and that committee lists showed he was a member of the first tender committee and vice-chairperson of the second.
WHAT NEWS24 REPORTED: The investigation did not allege a conflict of interest by Mohale. Reporting that a departmental spokesperson sits on tender evaluation committees is a matter of factual record, not an accusation of conflict of interest. The article did not use the phrase “conflict of interest” in connection with Mohale. News24 did, however, indicate that Mohale was on the bid committee and later authorised payments.
VERDICT: Misleading. News24 reported Mohale’s committee membership as a fact. It did not allege a conflict of interest.
Claim 4: News24 insinuated a relationship between the Ministers and the companies
WHAT CRISP TOLD PARLIAMENT: Crisp addressed “claims about the Minister’s links to KMTV’s owner, Khathu Mamaila” and stated that Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi and Deputy Minister Joe Phaahla had known Mamaila for 32 years.
WHAT NEWS24 REPORTED: Although News24 asked Mohale a question on possible relationships between the Ministers and the service providers, Mohale denied this. The investigation, therefore, did not insinuate a personal or business relationship between the Ministers and the companies and, in fact, never mentioned this at all. The Ministers themselves confirmed the 32-year acquaintance with Mamaila in a separate departmental statement on 28 September. News24’s reporting did not make this claim; the Ministers did.
VERDICT: False. The relationship was disclosed by the Ministers, not insinuated by News24.
Claim 5: News24 said a contract ballooned to R146m and then later that it ballooned to R182m
WHAT CRISP TOLD PARLIAMENT: Crisp said: “The R146m at the beginning of the week which became R182m by the end of the week was the addition of the Dots portion of the contract – event management.” He framed this as News24 changing its figure.
WHAT NEWS24 REPORTED: News24 explicitly reported that KMTV’s contract ballooned to approximately R146m and Dots Design’s contract ballooned to R35m and that the combined payments totalled R182m. These figures appeared in the same investigation, on the same day, and were not a revision. Crisp’s framing conflates the two and presents a deliberate distinction as an inconsistency.
VERDICT: False. News24 distinguished between KMTV’s individual contract value and the combined total from the outset. Crisp misrepresented this as a change in the reporting to discredit the investigation.
Claim 6: KMTV’s CSD registration as ‘accommodation services’ doesn’t matter because the RFQ was between R1m and R2m
WHAT CRISP TOLD PARLIAMENT: Crisp suggested that KMTV being registered as “accommodation services” on its Central Supplier Database (CSD) profile was immaterial because the request for quotation (RFQ) was in the range of R1m to R2m m. He said that “a mining company or an insurance company or anybody can bid”.
WHAT NEWS24 REPORTED: The tender advert for this contract was not an RFQ – it was a formal, open competitive bid, and did not mention any contract price. It used the 90/10 preference systems for a tender above R50m.
The scale of the expenditure that followed the appointment makes the registration mismatch material rather than immaterial.
A “R1m-to-R2m RFQ” that balloons to a R182m combined spend is precisely the concern the investigation raised.
A supplier registered on the CSD for “accommodation services” being awarded communication and media contracts worth tens of millions of rands raises a legitimate question about whether the CSD classification was circumvented or misused.
VERDICT: False. There was no “RFQ” – the procurement method indicated that the department anticipated large spending. Even if it did mention an initial value, it does not extinguish the significance of a CSD registration mismatch when the eventual spend was nearly 100 times that range.
Claim 7: News24’s allegation that money came from ‘a different’ NHI grant
WHAT CRISP TOLD PARLIAMENT: In Crisp’s presentation to the committee, he said the money was not used for “purchasing services from GPs as it was claimed in the allegation”.
WHAT NEWS24 REPORTED: The second paragraph of News24’s report explicitly states that some funds were “drawn from a National Health Insurance budget meant to develop the system that would govern how doctors are paid under the NHI”. This is the same point Crisp made before Parliament in defence of the department.
VERDICT: Misleading. Crisp tried to deflect a claim that News24 did not make with a claim News24 did make.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
NHI’s R182m spin deal a sign of things to come?
Questions over NHI advertising contracts spark investigations
NHI scheme will open doors to corruption