Private company LNG has been ordered to return the profit earned from a R113.2m PPE contract awarded by the Gauteng Department of Health during the pandemic, after a special tribunal ruled it unlawful and invalid this week.
The judgment said LNG should be denied all profits – and also ordered it to submit “audited statements of income and expenses in relation to the PPEs” delivered to Gauteng Health.
Mail & Guardian reports that an investigation by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) found, in April 2020, that the provincial Health Department’s then chief financial officer, Kabelo Lehloenya, “took the decision” to procure 500 000 N95 face masks, 1m three-ply surgical masks and 250 000 boxes of 100 sterile, powder-free surgical gloves.
Lehloenya then recommended that HoD Mkhululi Lukhele approve LNG’s contract, deviating from normal procurement procedures, and that this be reported to the Gauteng Treasury for a pardoning of the deviation.
“An SIU investigation … has found that the competitive bidding process was not followed and deviation from this process was not duly approved, and that the contracted prices were high,” said SIU spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago.
“Furthermore, the SIU found that LNG was not registered on the government’s central supplier database for the supply of PPE when it was awarded the multimillion-rand contract.”
On Tuesday, the SIU said it would file an expert report on the reasonableness of the income and expenses set out in LNG statements as directed by the court.
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