Durban – The public protector has launched a preliminary investigation into a controversial R61 million tender that saw the KwaZulu-Natal health department lease a mobile clinic for R52.5 million.
Public Protector Thuli Madonsela’s spokeswoman Kgalalelo Masibi said on Friday: “The public protector has decided to do a preliminary investigation. Depending on the outcome she could then do a full investigation into the tender.”
Madonsela’s investigation follows complaints about the tender lodged by both the Democratic Alliance and the Inkatha Freedom Party, who were incensed that the department agreed to such a lease when it could have bought four such mobile clinics for the same price.
On Friday police Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi confirmed the Hawks were also investigating the tender.
“The probe is still ongoing. It has not yet been taken to the DPP’s [director of public prosecutions] office,” he said.
The investigation by the Hawks into the tender was revealed when ANA last week obtained a copy of the department’s latest annual financial statements (AFS), for 2014/15, that shows negotiations are underway to purchase the mobile clinic, which is a truck and trailer that has a standard X-ray machine.
According to page 345 of the AFS: “Goods and services over expenditure was due to pressures from payment of accruals from 2013/14, the lease of the Universal Mobile Hospital Unit which was more costly than anticipated (the department is currently engaging with the supplier to purchase the unit)…”
Asked last week about the intended purchase of the mobile clinic and how much it would cost, department spokesman Sam Mkhwanazi said: “The matter of leasing of the universal mobile hospital mentioned on page 345 of the KZN department of health annual report for the financial year 2014/15, and referred to in your query, is currently under investigation by the Serious Economic Offenses Unit of the Directorate For Priority Crime Investigation [Hawks]. To this end, the department is unable to comment as this might interfere with the investigation.”
The R61 million tender, ZNB 9281/2012-H, made headlines earlier in January this year when it emerged that the company, Mzansi Lifecare, which had won the tender for the R52.5 million lease, was created only 17 days before the tender was announced in the Government Gazette in June 2012.
Former KwaZulu-Natal health department head Dr Sibongile Zungu signed off on the lease in August 2013, agreeing the department would pay Mzansi Lifecare R1.5m every month until August 2016 to lease the vehicle without staff.
When the tender made headlines in January, it emerged that the department could have purchased outright four similar units from the United States.
“That kind of money is crazy. If it cost that much, you already wasted four-and-a-half million [dollars],” was the reaction from Richard M Dinse, vice president of LifeLine Mobile, a company based in the US state of Ohio that manufactures such vehicles.
“For the price they were charged, LifeLine could have delivered four identical vans to Durban. And, it wouldn’t be on a lease agreement; they would own all four of the vans.”
He said the company could supply a 12-metre vehicle with a comparable floor plan with an X-ray and ultrasound machine for about US1.1 million (about R12.5 million). That price, he said, would include a tent, training, and warranty costs.
African News Agency