A North West businessman’s lawsuit against the provincial Department of Health has exposed claims of corruption in the construction of a multimillion-rand hospital, with two service providers allegedly appointed for the same job.
Court papers reveal that Bagale Consulting, appointed in 2008 to build the new 150-bed Lichtenburg hospital in the Ditsobotla Local Municipality, had been paid more than R30m by 2016. The new hospital was to replace the General De La Rey Hospital in Lichtenburg, reports News24.
The payment was for acquisition of land, consolidation of project sites, environmental assessment, a traffic impact study, geotechnical investigation, land survey and hospital layout and design. However, the department seemingly abandoned the project and stopped giving instructions to the appointed service provider. It later emerged that another service provider had been appointed for the project.
Documents filed in the North West High Court (Mafikeng) in February show that Bagale Consulting was about to tender for the R249m contract to build the hospital when the project was ditched in 2016.
In March 2022, the department appointed MIB Infrastructure Development as consultants to co-ordinate and manage the planning, design and commission of the project for more than R27.7m in professional fees.
Detailing the events in his founding affidavit, Tshwaro Modipa, director of Bagale Consulting, said the department had stopped communicating with his company in 2016 and ignored numerous attempts to seek clarity on the project.
In January last year, he said, Bagale received a letter from the department, saying their designs would now be used for another hospital elsewhere, in Madibogo.
“We were surprised … especially in legalities and practicalities of reassigning us a completely new project and a different site some 100km away from the project site to which we were initially appointed,” he said.
The company resisted the intended reallocation and insisted its Lichtenburg site contract remain valid until official termination: it also asked if another service provider had been appointed.
But Modipa said the department would not terminate their contract or reveal whether another service provider had been appointed, until they had submitted a Promotion of Access to Information Act application in February this year.
He said the appointment of MIB Infrastructure Development was disguised as if it were for a different project – to upgrade the General De La Rey Hospital to a 120-bed facility – to avoid its flagging as fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
However, said Modipa, it was clear from the documentation that MIB Infrastructure Development had been appointed to execute the same project that Bagale Consulting had been appointed to do.
Bagale wants the court to set aside, and rule as invalid and unlawful, the department’s decision to appoint MIB Infrastructure Development, as well as a declaratory order that Bagale’s contract remains valid, lawful and enforceable.
The department and MIB Infrastructure Development had not responded to questions sent to them by the time of going to print.
Modipa has also written to the newly appointed Health MEC, Sello Lehari, complaining about possible maladministration or corruption by senior officials and their procurement committees in the department.
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