The Limpopo Health Portfolio Committee wants MEC Phophi Ramathuba to submit a detailed report on more than R500m worth of expenditure on what it called “rushed spending” on COVID-19 essentials. News24 reports that the committee's chairperson Joshua Matlou said they had been inundated with concern over serious allegations of malfeasance and corruption in COVID-19 related procurement.
“In a previous engagement around June 2020, the department indicated to the portfolio committee that its spending on the personal protective equiptment (PPE) was in the region of R250m. But in a "sudden turn of events" in less than two months, the figure now stands at more than half a billion. The portfolio committee is deeply concerned with this state of "rushed spending".
Matlou said procurement was seemingly not done on the basis of the province's need analysis, but "was used as a free ticket by unscrupulous elements who saw this as an opportunity for wanton spending of the public purse".
[link url="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/limpopo-committee-want-answers-after-rushed-spending-on-covid-19-ppe-goes-from-r250m-to-r500m-20200818"]Full News24 report[/link]