One of the companies involved in the syndicate that banked R250m in Tembisa Hospital contracts has still, since then, been paid nearly R1m by the Gauteng Department of Health, ratcheting up two fat contracts from Edenvale Hospital.
Minzorex, a relatively unknown company, which has been red-flagged by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU), earned R985 100 in two transactions from the hospital, the last lump sum being paid into the firm’s bank account in January.
News24 first exposed Minzorex as part of a network of 17 entities controlled by four members of the Mazibuko clan. All were identified as “possibly fraudulent suppliers” by whistle-blower Babita Deokaran in the weeks before her assassination.
Before Minzorex came under scrutiny from the SIU, director Bhekumuzi Ntshangase admitted he was a proxy for his brother, Rudolf Mazibuko, patriarch and head of their medical supply dynasty.
'Speak to my brother'
In September, Nrshangase had denied any knowledge of Minzorex. “My brother does the orders and delivers things… I don’t know anything. I am just a shareholder.”
He said he worked full-time in a factory that makes animal feed.
The company’s business address is a small RDP house in the informal settlement of Geluksoord, four hours from Tembisa Hospital. However, the house number listed in the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission database does not exist.
The dynasty
When Deokaran first red-flagged spending from Tembisa Hospital, she reported her concerns to Gauteng Health Department management, attaching a list of 217 companies and questioning their legitimacy. Included were 16 that traced back to Rudolf Mazibuko, his late wife, Linhle, and their son, Thandolwethu.
News24 initially identified records of 152 individual transactions (amounting to R54 743 221) paid to entities linked to the family.
In November 2019, six companies they control saw a flurry of 17 transactions that Tembisa Hospital processed within days, most of the deals going to Apollo Clothing, owned by Linhle Mazibuko and Thandolwethu, for clothing and cleaning supplies. Linhle Mazibuko died early this year.
The list included:
• Lounge shirts at R1 350 each;
• Cargo trousers at nearly R1 500 a pair; and
• Four pairs of hiking boots (two black and two brown) for R3 700 each.
On 8 February 2021, two payments of R19 600 were processed for “bucket heavy duty 12.5l plastic (sic)”. The hospital bought two in red and two in blue, paying nearly 5 000% more than it should have.
The SIU, with access to the Gauteng Health Department’s payment systems, established that companies controlled by the Mazibuko family were paid R250m in two years from Tembisa Hospital alone.
How much money has been channelled through Minzorex remains uncertain.
Scant detail around the latest rounds of payments to Minzorex were drawn from Gauteng Health, which could not be drawn on what the two payments were for. Repeated attempts to obtain payment schedules on how taxpayers’ rands are spent have been met with a blanket refusal.
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