Maverick Citizen 168
Covid-19 corruption: There’s still a great deal of it going down in Gauteng
Kopanong Hospital.(Photo: Supplied)
It is now common knowledge that the emergency regulations issued by the National Treasury in March 2020 to make it possible to have an expedited response to the Covid-19 crisis opened the floodgates to a wave of corruption, far greater and possibly far more costly than the Covid-19 wave that has officially claimed more than 20,000 lives in South Africa.
Initially, public attention was focused on the orgy of corruption around procurement of PPE and the high-profile political casualties of this, most notably former Gauteng MEC for Health Dr Bandile Masuku. But there have been several shortcomings to our investigations so far. Firstly, within Gauteng, scrutiny of spending seemed to stop at PPE, and secondly, with a few scalps in hand, there has been very little forensic examination of possible corruption outside Gauteng.
Since late September Maverick Citizen has been carrying out a wider investigation into Covid-19 expenditure in Gauteng. Our inquiry was catalysed by frontline health workers who contacted us and raised concerns about what they saw with the building of four expensive ICU field hospitals that would not be needed. In addition they questioned why the builders were using an Alternative Building Technology that is largely unproven in the health system.
The ICU field hospital project, which has still not yielded a single new bed months after the Covid-19 wave has passed Gauteng, will cost close to R2-billion and payments to the four construction consortia that bagged the still undisclosed tenders had already amounted to R356-million by the end of July.
The health workers’ suspicions were confirmed. As a result of our investigation the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has now extended its investigation from PPE to health infrastructure, and the field hospitals specifically. There are also now intradepartmental investigations taking place, particularly looking at the Gauteng Department of Infrastructure Development (GDID).
The health workers’ suspicions were confirmed. As a result of our investigation the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has now extended its investigation from PPE to health infrastructure, and the field hospitals specifically. There are also now intradepartmental investigations taking place, particularly looking at the Gauteng Department of Infrastructure Development (GDID).
Maverick Citizen’s investigation has been aided greatly by the fact that, as a result of the initial outcry over PPE, the Gauteng government now publishes monthly Covid-19 Expenditure Disclosure reports “to enable oversight bodies and other interested stakeholders to properly scrutinise it”. There have been three so far covering all expenditure up to the end of November.
These reports contain a treasure trove of information, confirming the benefits of transparency for monitoring procurement. However, their use is also limited because Gauteng does not at this point publish the tenders, the contracts or reports on delivery of contracts. We are left with numbers that smell of impropriety, but with no way to check them out.
In response to a question from Maverick Citizen the National Treasury (NT) told us that Expenditure Disclosure reports are being compiled in every province and are available on their website. The NT also keeps a dashboard of overall expenditure. In response to our question about whether evidence of possible irregular or wasteful expenditure is investigated the NT told us that it “is collaborating with the Fusion Centre to investigate cases”.
In Gauteng our investigation progressed on the basis of reports, whistle-blowers and visiting some of the hospitals. As it did it became apparent that fruitless and irregular expenditure is an epidemic and, as was pointed out regularly by the Auditor-General, is costing the country billions.
Some of the things we found in the three Gauteng reports were:
Some of the things we found in the three Gauteng reports were:
That an order for R1.96-million had been reflected as a payment of R196-million. This was corrected but only after Maverick Citizen pointed it out. However, our sources tell us that shifting decimal points to inflate costs is not unusual in the Gauteng Department of Health.
That R96-million was paid to 28 companies by the Department of Education in Gauteng for “sanitising school buildings” that had been empty after the hard lockdown – in spite of scientists’ advice that decontamination and “fogging” is not necessary. However, four of the companies, which received nearly R42-million between them, have the same directors and almost the same names.
That R328,427 was spent on deep-cleaning documents, again completely unnecessary, by the Document Management Centre in the Gauteng government. It engaged a company specialising in “pest hygiene” to do this.
These figures cannot be taken for granted. When these “small” amounts remain unchecked they eventually add up to billions.
According to the Auditor-General’s 2018/19 Citizens Report (well worth a read), last year irregular expenditure by provincial and national departments “shot up” to R62,6-billion – almost R11-billion more than in the previous year.
According to the Auditor-General’s 2018/19 Citizens Report (well worth a read), last year irregular expenditure by provincial and national departments “shot up” to R62,6-billion – almost R11-billion more than in the previous year.
This did not include R57-billion in irregular expenditure reported by Transnet, Eskom and other state-owned entities that the Auditor-General does not audit. The Auditor-General’s audits also uncovered unauthorised spending (especially overspending) of R1,37-billion, and fruitless and wasteful expenditure amounting to R849-million. That is more than R121-billion in one year alone – not including municipalities.
Sadly, the Covid-19 corruption story in Gauteng is far from over. The November Expenditure Disclosure report is remarkable for the information it doesn’t contain – no new figures from the GDID and Gauteng Department of Health, the two departments most implicated in corruption.
In the face of media scrutiny the Gauteng government has gone quiet and not responded to new allegations or the evidence that we have unearthed. The stock response is that the SIU is investigating and therefore there is no comment.
Before the end of the year we expect to hear the outcomes of investigations by the office of the Attorney General as well as the SIU. DM168
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Mark and your Editors.
Please actually read the AG reports that you extract figures from. It is irresponsible and inaccurate reporting to state or imply that “irregular expenditure” is a direct measure of corruption or waste.
That said, it is a sad reality that for 20 years the AG has not differentiated between immaterial irregularities (the overwhelming majority) and material irregularities and has condemned both equally in their reporting. The resultant misunderstanding and pressure by Parliament/scopa/the press/the public to eliminate all irregular expenditure and not just the material irregularities has been arguably counter productive. It resulted in Treasury making more and more every changing policies, procedures, guidelines, rules and hoops to jump through, inevitably giving rise to more and more minor misteps and infringements and greater (immaterial) irregular expenditure in a vicious feedback loop. It is also one of the primary reason every government entity now has hugely bloated administrative arms and we have an unaffordable public service payroll …….