Large-scale graft and nepotism in Eastern Cape health department

01 Feb 2016 | Admin Author

The Eastern Cape Health Department has revealed that a total of 554 "ghost" workers are costing it millions of rands.

Health MEC, Sicelo Gqobana, says a forensic audit by the Special Investigating Unit had revealed "devastating" large-scale graft and nepotism.

He says 544 employees had invalid identity numbers, while 8034 employees were found to be directors of companies doing business with the Bhisho Health Department.

MEC Gqobana said of those doing business with Bhisho, 234 health department employees had received payments totaling R42.8m.

"Payments made to employees included R7.3mn for providing medical support personnel, R4mn and R3.5mn for engineering support staff, and R3.8mn for a emergency services member," he said.

"The department said there were cases of 35 spouses of employees doing business with it, and linked to 35 companies which received payments of R11m."

The Health Department said in a statement on Sunday that there were "also a host of cases where procurement irregularities are rife in the manipulation of payments to avoid policy, payments made without invoices and duplicate payments."

"This preliminary report by the SIU and partners shows that the department is committed to clean governance and will root out corruption as it stifles service delivery," the department said.

The SIU is currently investigation alleged manipulation of procurement processes at the East London emergency services.