Gauteng hospitals staff attacked

SOWETO, SOUTH AFRICA – FEBRUARY 20: Newly renovated ward 35 at Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital on February 20, 2013 in Soweto, South Africa. (Photo by Gallo Images / City Press / Muntu Vilakazi)

Gauteng Health Dep “wasted” R500m on data storage contract – DA

The Gauteng Health Department continues to be linked with medical scandals and dodgy payments. MPL Jack Bloom has had his say.

Gauteng hospitals staff attacked

SOWETO, SOUTH AFRICA – FEBRUARY 20: Newly renovated ward 35 at Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital on February 20, 2013 in Soweto, South Africa. (Photo by Gallo Images / City Press / Muntu Vilakazi)

The Gauteng Health Department continues to be hit by allegations and scandals. This time, it’s all about the R500 million that the department spent on a data storage contract with Telkom in 2014.

Unsurprisingly, the Democratic Alliance and their Shadow Health Minister Jack Bloom are absolutely furious.

In a statement on Thursday, Bloom revealed that the contract was found to be unnecessary. The revelation comes from a written reply to Bloom’s questions in the Gauteng Legislature.

In the reply, Ramokgopa attempted to explain why the contract was awarded.

“The V-Block contract was awarded based on the Gauteng Department of Finance Memorandum of Understanding agreement with Telkom” and it was “to renew the dilapidated back-end infrastructure through the procurement of a converged (storage and computing) solution.”

Bloom said that it was “unbelievable that this wasteful contract was awarded when the storage facility at the provincial government’s e-governance department could have been used.”

Ramokgopa also said in the reply that the motion was made by the previous Chief Information Officer and was supported by the Chief Financial Officer. It was then granted by the head of department.

Bloom says corruption may be involved.

“This is either a massive blunder or corruption was involved. It’s a huge blow to the struggling health department which is desperately short of money to pay suppliers and provide quality care to millions of patients.”

“Ramokgopa says that there is currently an investigation underway which I hope is wide-ranging and should involve criminal prosecutions if the evidence shows corruption.”

Bloom says the public needs to know if former Health MEC Qedani Mahlangu was involved in the contract and who else benefited. He also called for anyone who benefited to be held accountable and for as much money to be recovered as possible.

Does this R500 million contract surprise you?