Johannesburg - The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has pounced on government officials and public representatives who defrauded the government of more than R10.6 million under the guise of caring for psychiatric patients at Life Esidimeni.
The SIU has also lodged an urgent court application to freeze the pension for former Gauteng Health head of department Dr Barney Selebano for his alleged role in the Life Esidimeni saga which led to the deaths of more than 140 patients.
On Thursday, the SIU revealed its civil actions against several NGOs for making false claims against the Gauteng Health Department while psychiatric patients were under their care.
SIU spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago said the law enforcement agency had obtained a final judgment worth R1.3m against NGOs Anchor House and Precious Angels.
According to evidence at the Moseneke Inquiry into the Life Esidimeni saga, several patients were housed at Precious Angels and others in Pretoria but most did not have a licence to take care of such patients, the inquiry
found.
Kganyago also said that civil actions to the tune of almost R7m have been instituted against the owners of 11 other NGOs.
“The SIU has also recovered R221 860 lost by Sassa due to the actions of NGOs,” Kganyago said.
He said the latest action followed a meeting of the Health Sector Anti-Corruption Forum (HSACF) on Monday this week, whose mandate is to combat fraud and corruption in the health
sector.
The HSACF includes civil society, health sector regulators, law enforcement agencies and government departments and is chaired by SIU head advocate Andy Mothibi.
Kganyago said the forum was an outcome of the Presidential Health Summit held in November last year.
He also revealed that an urgent interim court application has been at the Special Tribunal of the SIU to speed up with the process to freeze the pension worth more than R2 million of former HOD of Gauteng Health Dr
Selebano.
He further said: “Criminal referrals have been made for prosecutions, disciplinary referrals have been made to accounting officers, a civil action to the value of R10.6m has been instituted against implicated
officials.
“More than 70 lifestyle audits are being conducted on implicated officials, and 147 investigations have been completed on health professionals who were unlawfully registered.”
Kganyago said there were currently 45 health sector-related cases that are at advanced stages of investigation.