Dr. Thokozani Mhlongo, the former head of the Limpopo Health Department, has had his pension payments suspended awaiting the conclusion of civil actions concerning the illegal procurement of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) by the department.
Kaizer Kganyago, spokesman for the Special Investigating Unit, stated that the anti-corruption unit obtained a Special Tribunal order to freeze the benefits following Mhlongo’s resignation from the department in June “in the face of a disciplinary hearing resulting from SIU investigations into the department’s affairs.”
“The Special Investigations Unit will continue to pursue officials who quit in response to an investigation or disciplinary action by suspending their pension benefits and initiating civil lawsuits to recover financial losses incurred by state entities.”
“Investigations by the SIU have uncovered irregularities in the appointment of service providers Clinipro Pty Ltd, Pro Secure Pty Ltd, and Ndia Business Trading (Pty) Ltd for the supply and delivery of PPE items, resulting in the department incurring irregular expenditure and/or a fruitless and wasteful expenditure of approximately R182 million,” he said.
Kganyago noted that in addition to the PPE scam, Mhlongo allegedly “exposed the department to unnecessary expenditures” when he authorized the R10 million purchase of 10,000 cellphones for COVID-19 household screening.
“The government was only able to deliver 388 of the 10,000 cellphones between September 2020 and March 2021, and without the requisite screening application.”
“After SIU investigators physically counted cellphones in storage in March 2021, the department provided 9,588 smartphones to community health workers for COVID-19 vaccination without installing the required application,” Kganyago stated.