Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi must resign and a nationwide parliamentary inquiry into health procurement should be launched, according to the MK Party after the latest governmental scandal involving an alleged R180m being spent on communication contracts linked to the National Health Insurance (NHI) and other health campaigns, reports IOL.
The party wants the investigation to also probe procurement processes within all nine provincial health departments from 2019 to date, and for the Hawks and SIU to freeze active payments to the companies awarded the contracts and investigate officials who approved the purchase orders.
MK Party spokesperson Sifiso Mahlangu said the party was demanding political accountability for the decisions, and into the alleged diversion of funds from critical healthcare programmes.
The latest revelations allege that the department paid R146.4m to KMTV Media and R35m to Dots Design Agency, with Mahlangu saying R103m had been taken from the primary healthcare GP contracting grant (the CUPS initiative), which was supposed to be spent on placing doctors in rural and under-serviced public clinics.
Instead, R65m had instead been ring-fenced for advertising and billboards, while other funds were allegedly taken from programmes dealing with HIV/Aids, TB, child and youth school nutrition and health promotion.
The party slammed the procurement process used, alleging that bidders were appointed at R1 620 per transaction without a financial cap, while subsequent payments included invoices of more than R4m and purchase orders worth R52m.
The involvement of departmental spokesperson Foster Mohale was also brought into the accusations, with the MK alleging that he chaired the tender committee which had awarded the work and later even signed delivery notes and authorised payments to the service providers.
The Department of Health, which has rejected any claims of fraud, said it has referred the allegations to the Special Investigating Unit (SIU), Auditor-General and, if necessary, the Public Protector to establish the facts. Motsoaledi and Deputy Minister Joe Phaahla have backed the referral.
The Portfolio Committee on Health has noted the allegations and said it would consider inviting the department to brief MPs on the contracts and the steps being taken to establish the facts.
AfriForum weighs in
AfriForum has also raised concerns, saying the issue reinforced its opposition to the NHI, and raised questions about how a much larger NHI fund would be managed if the system were implemented.
AfriForum health spokesperson Louis Boshoff said the scandal supported the organisation’s concerns about possible corruption and mismanagement under the NHI.
“If there is already talk of irregular expenditure before the NHI Act has even come into effect, there is all the more reason to suspect that the eventual NHI fund will become a breeding ground for corruption,” he said.
He questioned the need to spend money marketing the NHI.
“The only way the system should be ‘marketed’ is by providing people with quality healthcare. Since the department is failing to do that, it is resorting to billboards and TV advertisements,” he said.
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