A recent random compliance audit of Gauteng Hospitals, including Tembisa, was not linked to whistle-blower Babita Deokaran’s report into the splurging of R850m from that hospital, said acting CFO of the Gauteng Health Department, Masibolekwe Ndima. He also denied that nearly half a million rands had been spent on actual “skinny jeans” by hospital bosses, and that this was just a coding error.
News24 reports that he described the timing of the audit, which was withdrawn on the day of her murder, as “just a coincidence”. Ndima, substituting for the now suspended Lerato Madyo, was speaking on 702 Radio. Madyo was suspended last month with Tembisa Hospital boss Ashley Mthunzi after a News24 investigative series.
Before her assassination, Deokaran flagged 217 companies with dodgy contracts for the supply of medical supplies, and recommended an urgent investigation.
Instead of a probe focused on the hospital, the department performed a compliance provincial audit of a number of hospitals, said Ndima, which was random and undertaken on a quarterly basis, adding that Tembisa was not a specific focus.
On the outlay by Tembisa Hospital bosses of R498 000 on a shipment of children’s skinny jeans, bought through a company formed a month before scoring the contract, and others worth millions, Ndima said that “skinny jeans” was a system coding error in the system, “not actual jeans”.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Tembisa Hospital pays footballer and wife R500,000 for skinny jeans contract
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ANC bigwigs score millions from Tembisa Hospital
Gauteng health boss ignored Deokaran’s plea for probe, claims acting HoD