Durban - KwaZulu-Natal Premier Sihle Zikalala lifted the lid on some of the investigations into Covid-19 related corruption, revealing that two companies implicated in the blanket scandal had agreed to return more than R1.5 million.
This comes after the DA revealed that it was seeking legal recourse to force the provincial government to unveil the outcomes of a 2019 forensic probe into alleged irregularities in the R25m provincial Treasury e-procurement system contract.
The Special Investigating Unit announced early last month that it was investigating 26 cases of alleged corruption in the procurement of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) across the province.
The unit subsequently launched a litigation process to cancel some contracts and recover the ill-gotten gains in the R22m procurement of 48 000 blankets that were purported to have been purchased (in an emergency) to aid homeless people.
As the SIU unearthed that it had not been compelling to award the contracts outside of the lengthier tender process since the department was found to have a stash of unused blankets in its storage, criminal cases were opened against senior officials from the social development department.
On Tuesday Zikalala said two of the implicated companies had agreed to return some of the taxpayers’ money.
He also revealed that 10 officials facing internal disciplinary actions, which he said should be finalised soon, would not return to work pending the outcome of the action.
The officials, who initially numbered 12 before one died and the other resigned, were also facing criminal cases, said Zikalala, who was responding during a debate in the legislature following his State of the Province Address.
“Members have spoken about issues of corruption involving PPEs that happened in the fight against the pandemic,” Zikalala said.
“We want to applaud the work done by the (internal government) investigating team and the SIU, who have advised us that through the civil action, two entities implicated in the procurement of blankets have agreed to repay more than R864 000 and R718 000. This is the work we are doing in fighting corruption,” he said.
A less impressed DA leader Zwakele Mncwango complained that a number of forensic audit findings remained outstanding.
“What about the probe undertaken by Treasury regarding its own irregular expenditure of R25 million in the implementation of the e-procurement tool?” Mncwango asked.
“We know this report was sent to you in 2019. Why are you keeping it under lock and key instead of sending it to the Ad Hoc committee (on financial mismanagement in the province), so that it can do its work?”
The party said it would take legal recourse in terms of the Public Access of Information Act, in an attempt to access the contents of the report.
“You cannot talk about consequence management and ending fraud and corruption in KZN and then cherry-pick who is investigated,” Mncwango said.
“… the latest irregular expenditure figures from Treasury show that our province has an irregular expenditure bill of R44.3 billion. As if this was not bad enough, there is only evidence of R15.5bn, meaning that a staggering R26.2bn is unaccounted for.”
In an apparent address to the DA’s complaint, which had been previously made public, Zikalala said officials who were implicated in alleged irregularities or corruption across the provincial departments had been placed on suspension, facing internal disciplinary action and criminal cases as applicable.
“In dealing with corruption, the Premier’s Office has suspended all officials who were involved in the forensic report that was done,” he said.
“The report has been implemented, and some of the officials implicated have been suspended and are facing criminal charges.”
Provincial government spokesperson Lennox Mabaso said all issues concerning allegations of corruption were addressed by the premier during the debate.
The Mercury