A photo of a Hawks branded vehicle. Photo: Hawks
Hawks raid Health Department’s office over PPE investigation
The Hawks have swooped in on the Department of Health’s Northern Cape offices. It’s all part of their COVID corruption investigation.
A photo of a Hawks branded vehicle. Photo: Hawks
Corruption involving Personal Protective Equipment (masks, hospital gowns etc) took place across the country during the pandemic. The Special Investigating Unit has found that hundreds of millions of rand contracts were irregular. With the Hawks looking into those contracts to make arrests, the group swooped down on the Northern Cape on Saturday.
Hawks raid Department of Health’s Northern Cape offices
A statement from the Hawks reveals that the unit’s Serious Corruption Investigation team carried out a search and seizure operation in Kimberly. The team seized documents and other pieces of potential evidence from the Department of Health in Kimberly on Friday.
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The Hawks says the raid forms part of a number of investigations ongoing into alleged irregularities regarding PPE contracts in the department.
“The seized items, which the team feels will aid the investigation include computer hard drives, memory sticks and external hard drives.”
Hawks Captain Tebogo Thebe
The health department in the province has been without a permanent Head of Department for almost two years.
COVID corruption or overpriced PPE?
In January, the SIU found that over R427 600 000 worth of contracts for decontamination of Gauteng schools,
were signed off by the province’s education department. At the same time, the SIU also recommended disciplinary action against Western Cape education Department officials. The SIU found that 99% of the department’s PPE tenders went to one company.
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Western Cape Education MEC Debbie Schafer insisted that the SIU report finds “no finding of corruption, collusion or fraud”. Schafer said the finding is limited to the process followed in the procurement of cloth masks.
In December 2021, the SIU revealed that it was investigating over R15 billion worth of PPE contracts. That figure is just 11% of the more than R100 billion spent by the government on PPE during the pandemic. Remember, it’s not just the SIU looking into things. The Hawks are carrying out their own investigations, and promise more arrests will be made soon.
