SIU Digital Vibes Zweli Mkhize COVID-19 vaccinated

Zweli Mkhize steps aside over the Digital Vibes tender contract: Photo: GCIS / Twitter

Digital Vibes: Over R1M spent on Gucci, two-month holiday & more

Tahera Mather reportedly used the Digital Vibes debit card to pay for shopping sprees and over R500 000 on home renovations

SIU Digital Vibes Zweli Mkhize COVID-19 vaccinated

Zweli Mkhize steps aside over the Digital Vibes tender contract: Photo: GCIS / Twitter

One of the undue beneficiaries of the multimillion-rand Digital Vibes contract splurged on all kinds of luxuries using funds that were primarily meant for the scandal-plagued communications company. According to Daily Maverick, Tahera Mather, a close associate of former Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize, spared no expense in treating herself after the department began making payments.

Mather and Naadhira Mitha, another woman linked to Mkhize, worked for Digital Vibes as paid consultants. The firm netted a cool R150 million for doing communications-related work for department’s National Health Insurance (NHI) and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mkhize was forced to resign from cabinet as more damning revelations implicated him and his son Dedani in the scandal, including a probe by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU).

The payments were reportedly made in 19 tranches between late January 2020 and early February 2021.

Digital Vibes: What Zweli Mkhize’s pal splurge on

According to Daily Maverick, Tahera Mather used money Digital Vibes received from the Department of Health on: endless shopping sprees in Sandton, high-end dining as well as beauty spas. These activities alone amounted to at least R170 000.

These include R90 000 spent at a Gucci store in Sandton and R35 000 at an iStore.

Mather also used R530 000 of the funds to renovate her home in Blytherdale, KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) as well as R200 000 on a two-month holiday in Turkey.

According to Daily Maverick, companies and accounts controlled by Mather and members of her family bagged close to R30 million from Digital Vibes.

A previous Daily Maverick expose had shown that Digital Vibes paid R160 000 for a Toyota Land Cruiser owned by Dedani and also transferred R300 000 to his company – all this not too long after the first few payments were made from the department. These revelations would turn out to be tip of the iceberg as the SIU has found that Dedani received R3.8 million from Digital Vibes while the disgraced ex-minister bagged R6.7 million.