“The High Court in Pretoria ordered the Anchor Centre and the Dorothy Evangeline Franks facility to pay this money as they had continued to claim payment after the psychiatric patients were removed from their care,” Gauteng DA health spokesperson Jack Bloom said in a statement on Sunday.

The said judgment was obtained by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) on Friday.

This comes after the state’s forensic investigation and litigation agency, in terms of the Special Investigating Units and Special Tribunals Act of 1996, had been tasked with probing matters relating to unlawful and improper conduct on the part of 28 NGOs tasked with the care of mental health patients, News24 reported.

This task was issued in 2017 by then-president Jacob Zuma, to investigate the Life Esidimeni tragedy and whether NGOs were paid “in a manner that was not fair, transparent, equitable and contrary to applicable legislation”.

The Health Ombudsman’s Professor Malegapuru Makgoba revealed in a report that numerous patients had died after being transferred from Life Healthcare Esidimeni to various NGOs across Gauteng, due to cost-cutting measures. The report also found that several human rights were violated in the process, News24 earlier reported.

The SIU’s work is not done, as the agency is pursuing civil action against another nine NGOs who submitted invoices for payments for non-existent patients, according to Bloom.

“I hope that criminal charges will also be laid against the people at these NGOs who fraudulently obtained these payments.

“It highlights the administrative ineptitude of the department as they paid over money even though they should have known that the patients had been transferred elsewhere,” Bloom added.

Bloom, however, expressed concern over the delay in charging those whose criminal negligence led to 144 deaths of the mental health patients in their care.

“Why is it taking so long for this to get to court? The lives that were lost are surely more precious than stolen money,” Bloom said. DM