Pubs, car washes, genuine real estate agencies, and a dead guy-owned corporate structure are among the corporations that have won public contracts for the COVID-19 non-public apparatus (PPE), according to multiple reports.
The reports adhere to the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) which revealed to parliament this week that it was investigating the allocation of R5 billion in government contracts related to COVID-19 for gadgets and materials. intended to fight the virus.
SIU leader Andy Mothibi explained that those illegal contracts for the acquisition of PPE, ventilators, food services, hospitals, quarantine sites and wheelchairs.
The SIU is one of the entities that, through President Cyril Ramaphosa, have been tasked with investigating the irregularities surrounding the COVID-19 contracts.
The report reported that SARS Commissioner Edward Kieswetter updated Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) on Friday regarding several of those investigations.
“Many companies were previously registered, but they were not in the PPE business. We found providers registered as pubs, IT companies, car washing companies, and property renting companies,” Kieswetter said.
The tax administration is supporting the SIU with around 370 instances in the Free State and is also investigating 17 bids of R 1. 2 billion with political ties.
DispatchLive reported that a company owned by a deceased East London businessman won a tender for around R 1 million to obtain COVID-19 PPE for the Eastern Cape Health Department.
The company was included in a list of over 600 firms that have benefitted from the department’s R1.2-billion COVID-19 expenditure over the last three months.
However, the sole director and owner of the business died two years ago, a member of the family circle told the publication.
A source told DispatchLive that corruption runs deep in the province.
“If you dig deeper, you will see that there are shell corporations that have been paid millions of rand,” said the source.
“There are corporations that have won letters of appointment but have not been given pictures, and yet their names appear on the provincial list as corporations that have received pictures,” added the official.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has responded to reports of PPE-like corruption in South Africa.
In a scathing indictment, the organization’s chief executive, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that depriving medical care from the PEE apparatus amounted to murder.
“Corruption similar to the PPE, for me it is murder. Because if fitness personnel paint without PPE, we are risking their lives. And it also puts the lives of the other people they serve at risk, ”Tedros said.
“So it’s a crime and it’s a homicide and it has to stop,” he said.
However, COVID-19-like corruption allegations are limited to the PPE.
During the early stages of the shutdown, members of the public claimed that the government was hoarding and promoting food donations to disadvantaged families.
In early August, the Québec Ombudsman declared that he had won a flood of court cases on behavioral and service problems related to the coronavirus pandemic.
Most of the court cases relate to the government’s R350 COVID-19 monetary relief program, with more than 450 people coming to the workplace to complain about what are unreasonable reasons to deny their applications.
In most cases, the complainants allege that they were not informed of the reasons why their claims were rejected, or that the claims were rejected due to the fact that the claimants were found to be beneficiaries of a secure source of income or they were qualified. for the FIU, which they contested.
coronavirus COVID-19 Edward Kieswetter SARS Special Investigations Unit (SIU)
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