SIU: We're working to recover monies from irregular PPE contracts
The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) says it's investigating irregular Personal Protective Equipment contracts to the value of R14,8 billion.
It's a portion of the R138,8 billion that government has spent so far on Covid-19-related procurement.
Unit head Andy Mothibi has been briefing Parliament's Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) on their PPE contract investigations.
"Of that R14.8 billion worth of irregular contracts the investigations that have been completed, we have referred about R1.91 billion worth of contract value of contracts that have been found to be irregular by the investigations and those have been referred to the special tribunal in order to set the contracts aside and to recover the loses."
He says over 5 000 tenders that were awarded are being probed.
"Theses were awarded to about 2 686 service providers, 29 percent of these investigations into these contracts and services providers have been finalised as at the time of this report."
Mothibi says the SIU finalised irregular PPE contracts in KZN to the value of R2,1 billion.
"It's followed national team and national the national state entities. They finalised investigations to the tune of R1.5 billion. Eastern Cape finalised investigations to the tune of R1.4 billion. Gauteng province they finalised investigations worth R1.2 billion."
Mothibi says millions' worth of other awarded Covid-19 related tenders in the province were still being scrutinised.
"The KZN team has really worked hard to work down the contracts that they were investigating to about R99 million as of the time of this report.
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