Former Limpopo Health HoD Thokozani Mhlongo has failed in her bid to unfreeze her pension, with a Special Tribunal dismissing her application to reconsider an order allowing the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) to release her benefits.
The SIU welcomed the tribunal’s order, reports News24.
Mhlongo had resigned as HoD after the department instituted a disciplinary hearing against her over dodgy PPE Covid-19 contracts, and in October, the SIU was granted the order to freeze her pension benefits.
The order interdicts the Government Employees Pension Fund from paying out or transferring any funds due to her while civil proceedings are under way to recover losses suffered by the department because of the suspicious tenders.
SIU spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago said the SIU applied for preservation orders early in its investigations after uncovering prima facie evidence against officials.
“The SIU investigations have uncovered irregularities in the appointment of service providers Clinipro, Pro Secure and Ndia Business Trading for the supply and delivery of PPE items, resulting in the department incurring irregular expenditure and/or a fruitless and wasteful expenditure of R182m.
“The investigation revealed that Dr Mhlongo, as the accounting officer, exposed the department to wasteful expenditure when she authorised the procurement and payment of 10 000 cellphones worth R10m for Covid-19 household screening.
“The department could only manage to distribute 388 of the 10 000 phones between September 2020 and March 2021, and they were distributed without the required screening application, SIU investigations revealed. After the physical counting of cellphones in storage by SIU investigators in March 2021, the department distributed 9 588 cellphones to community health workers for Covid-19 vaccination without the required application installed.”
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Former Limpopo Health HoD’s pension frozen over COVID deals
Limpopo health chief resigns amid multimillion rand PPE tender probe
Limpopo Health chief and CFO charged over R125m PPE scandal