Despite public undertakings from Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi to remove the tainted R836m hospital oxygen plan tender from the Independent Development Trust (IDT), the Maziya joint venture’s contract remains firmly as it was, writes Azarrah Karrim for amaBhungane in Daily Maverick.
A R152m contract with the Maziya On-Site Gas Systems joint venture to supply the plants is still with the IDT — despite the Minister promising that the entire tender had been taken away from the trust.
After reporting by amaBhungane and Daily Maverick, which raised numerous red flags about the IDT adjudication and prompted a PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) investigation into the Pressure Swing Adsorption tender, Motsoaledi pledged to terminate the IDT-managed process and have it transferred to the Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA) to oversee afresh.
The trust had awarded about 55 hospital sites split between two bidders: Bulkeng, with a contract for R428m, and Maziya, with a contract worth R152m.
Now it has emerged that the Maziya contract has remained in place with the IDT, despite the initial claim that the DBSA would take over, review and probably rerun the whole process.
While the bank has gone on open tender for a new contractor, it appears that the Maziya contract, covering about 10 hospital sites, has somehow been excluded from the transfer and instead has been handed back to the trust to manage.
When and why this happened is not clear.
‘Left as it was’
National Department of Health (NDoH) spokesperson Foster Mohale told amaBhungane the Health Minister had asked that the whole Pressure Swing Adsorption project be transferred to the DBSA.
“After the transfer, the bank then advised that the Maziya contract should not be transferred to them because at that time nobody had yet alleged any anomaly, malfeasance or flaws regarding this contract.
“The DBSA was worried that, legally, Maziya could interdict the process and stop the bank from executing the whole Pressure Swing Adsorption project. That would have defeated the whole process of our hospitals producing their own oxygen timeously. The Maziya contract was then left as it was.”
Yet this explanation doesn’t add up.
First, neither the department nor the DBSA would say whether they had taken legal advice about the probity of the Maziya contract, or the risk of litigation should it be cancelled as the Bulkeng one was. Neither did they indicate that Maziya had threatened legal action.
Both amaBhungane’s investigations – and the summary of the PwC report released by Public Works Minister Dean Macpherson – raised concerns about flaws in the whole tender process run by the IDT. It resulted in the awards to both Maziya and Bulkeng, although most of the material issues flagged focused on Bulkeng.
Second, the contract signed between the NDoH and DBSA as recently as 12 August 2025 made provision for the entire IDT project to be handed over to the DBSA, including the hospital sites previously awarded to Maziya.
The contract also provided for an option for the DBSA to retain service providers previously appointed by the trust, such as Maziya.
The contract states: “This must only be done after the DBSA has conducted due diligence on the procurement processes of the Service Providers appointed by Independent Development Trust and their performance. The cession process needs the endorsement of the national Department of Health.”
In other words, if the Maziya award were above board, then the DBSA was free to simply take over the existing contract with Maziya.
Yet this did not happen, and the DBSA failed to answer our question as to whether it did conduct this due diligence before deciding not to take over Maziya’s contract.
Neither is it clear that the NDoH and DBSA have concluded a written and signed variation to the contract, as required.
The version shared with amaBhungane on 18 September 2025 – along with the statement confirming Maziya’s contract remained “as it was” – still confers on the DBSA responsibility for all 55 sites.
Maziya told us: “Our bid, and our subsequent contract as the Maziya On-Site Gas Systems Joint Venture concluded with the Independent Development Trust thereafter, being found to be above reproach and untainted, which in turn is the reason why such contract still subsists, uncancelled.”
Perhaps no fault can be laid at Maziya’s door, yet amaBhungane’s review of the trust’s award process shows chaotic procurement, shifting costs and nonsensical hospital allocations.
The trust did not respond to our questions.
Red flags
Funded by the Global Fund, the plan’s projected budget ballooned from R216m to R836m.
According to the IDT, this final total budget encompassed contractor costs as well as maintenance costs for a 36-month period and was inclusive of all applicable fees (i.e, professional consultants), trust management fees and VAT.
Amid the cost surge, we found that Bulkeng, the larger contractor, appeared to have falsified signatures, used an Original Equipment Manufacturer’s South African Health Products Regulatory Authority certificate without authorisation, and lacked the necessary Construction Industry Development Board grading to carry out the work.
Days after amaBhungane interviewed Bulkeng’s director, Nkosinathi Ndlovu, he was found dead. The police are still investigating.
But the concerns were not limited to Bulkeng.
As amaBhungane’s own reporting revealed, an August 2023 meeting held by the project’s steering committee decided that it would be best to restart the whole procurement process, citing the major cost escalations and problems with the tender specifications. They were ignored.
Despite internal warnings to restart the process, then-Independent Development Trust CEO Tebogo Malaka (now suspended) and Health Director-General Dr Sandile Buthelezi pushed through the deal.
PwC’s report described missing minutes, incomplete committees, undocumented scoring and opaque negotiations.
Public Works Minister Macpherson later said the IDT inflated the budget “without a single documented approval or value-for-money assessment”.
Disciplinary action was recommended against Malaka, supply chain head Dr Molebedi Sisi, and several trust officials.
A November 2024 internal probe by the Department of Public Works flagged further discrepancies, noting Bulkeng was awarded 45 sites for R428m and Maziya just 10 sites for R152m, without explanation for the disparity. The report called for a “comprehensive investigation” into both appointments.
Maziya’s bid and evaluation
AmaBhungane’s review of Maziya’s bid and some IDT internal documents available to us showed not only inflated prices, but also that it was initially allocated hospitals for which it hadn’t bid.
To give an idea of the inflation in relation to Maziya, amaBhungane compared the trust’s 2022 implementation plan, the NDoH’s second concurrence letter approving inflated project costs in February 2024, and Maziya’s original quotes according to a bid submission from 27 September 2023.
The original implementation plan included estimates for “small, medium and large” plants, which were later changed to 20, 30 and 40 normal cubic metres per hour (nm/h) plants. In the highly technical business of Pressure Swing Adsorption oxygen plants, it is unclear what the original sizes referred to and why a more thorough job wasn’t done from the outset.
At Greytown Hospital in KwaZulu-Natal, the original estimate was R4.2m. Maziya quoted R17.6m for a 40nm/h plant and settled on R12.5m. Bulkeng quoted R16.8m for the same hospital.
Maziya COO Lucky Qotoyi told amaBhungane that they “are on record that Maziya Onsite cannot comment on Greytown Hospital as we didn’t tender for that site”.
For Bethesda Hospital, also in KZN, Maziya quoted R25m for a smaller 25nm/h plant, while the estimate placed it at R2.8m. The final amount was to be awarded at R12.5m.
For Elim Hospital in Limpopo, Bulkeng quoted just more than R3m for one 40nm/h plant – less than the original estimate at R4.2m. According to the 7 September 2023 executive bid adjudication committee submission, this was a mistake.
Maziya quoted R17.9m for the same hospital. It was originally awarded to Bulkeng for R12m in 2024 and then to Maziya for the same price. It is not clear how the final bidder and price was negotiated.
Based on original quotes, Maziya’s bid per hospital was only slightly cheaper than Bulkeng’s even though Maziya did not bid for four provinces. Subsequent to these documents, however, Maziya was awarded a different set of hospitals.
However, its path to a final award still had unexplained discrepancies.
A chaotic process
In September 2023, Maziya was allocated 46 hospitals, including 15 for which it never bid.
Then, in October 2023, Maziya was allocated five of the most expensive hospitals, before that was brought down to just one in February 2024.
According to a formal letter of 16 January 2024 from the IDT to the NDoH requesting approval of the changed budget and preselected contractors, at that stage Maziya was allocated only one site, Greytown, whereas every other site was allocated to Bulkeng.
This lopsided award prompted national Department of Health CFO Phaswa Mamogale to write on the bid approval form when he signed off on 14 February 2024 that: “As risk mitigation, IDT should appoint multiple service providers in future to prevent/avoid dependencies on [a] single provider.”
It’s not clear how Maziya went from one site in February to 10 sites in June 2024.
In addition, Mamogale queried what had happened to a third bidder, Powerchoice, which had apparently also made it through the adjudication process but mysteriously dropped out.
That exit has never been explained, and Powerchoice told amaBhungane that it was “also in the dark”.
More money
Now, almost a year later, the NDoH has again attempted to justify the ballooning costs, but the IDT previously gave different reasons for the cost increase.
The trust previously blamed inflation, VAT and maintenance costs dating back to 2017 and 2019 estimates. The national Department of Health now claims the Global Fund simply gave more money, expanding the project from 30 to 60 hospitals.
This, however, contradicts early planning documentation, and the 2022 implementation plan – signed by both NDoH and IDT officials – which had already put the project cost at R216m for 60 hospitals.
Mohale said the Global Fund then shared its catalogues of Pressure Swing Adsorption oxygen plant prices when the department struggled with its own estimates, and an internal assessment of oxygen demand also justified higher costs.
The Global Fund did not respond to amaBhungane’s requests to confirm the NDoH’s version of events.
Official intervention
As more allegations surfaced earlier this year, Motsoaledi declared that the contracts would be terminated and transferred the project to the DBSA.
On the release of PwC’s report in July, he said: “It must be noted that when this story of the possibility of corruption broke out in the public media, the Minister of Health in consultation with Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure immediately took a decision to remove the tender from the IDT and took it to the DBSA so that the project can continue and deliver the much-needed oxygen.”
Now we know that in the case of Maziya, at least, that didn’t happen.
What we don’t know is why.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Forensic report exposes extent of state hospital oxygen tender fraud
Oxygen plant tender probe delayed
‘Alleged death’ of key player in R836m oxygen tender project
‘Ghost company’ bags R428m oxygen plants tender