At 4.51am on Wednesday morning, an alert came through from the ministry of health informing journalists that minister Zweli Mkhize would be holding a press conference to address controversy over a dodgy R150m communications contract that went to a company called Digital Vibes.
A series of in-depth investigations by Daily Maverick has revealed how Mkhize’s erstwhile spokesperson and personal friend Tahera Mather and former personal assistant Naadirah Mitha had personally benefited as paid consultants to the obscure company that scored a tender to render communication services in respect of the National Health Insurance (NHI) and, later, the fight against Covid-19. About R90m of the R150m was channelled to entities linked to Mather, Mitha, their family members and associates.
The most shocking revelation concerned how the department of health was charged R3.6m for the minister’s appearance on an SABC news bulletin in December 2020 to announce that SA had officially entered a second wave of Covid-19. Digital Vibes also subcontracted animation work for an NHI awareness campaign to a professional design studio that charged them R300,000 for the work. In turn, the communications company billed the department R1.1m, walking off with a cool R800,000 profit. The contract has since been terminated and is now the subject of an investigation by the Special Investigating Unit.
Bizarrely, Mkhize refused to acknowledge any conflict of interest in his former spokesperson and ex-PA scoring a lucrative contract to provide services to him as minister.
On Tuesday, as public anger over the looting spree grew, the health department issued a terse statement conceding irregularities in the awarding of the contract but asked for “more time” to allow internal and external investigations to run their course. When this dismissive statement fuelled more public anger, Mkhize sought to personally address the allegations in a peculiar way.
At 6.12am on Wednesday journalists received a Zoom link via messaging service WhatsApp, which they would use to access the virtual press briefing. At this briefing, only 30 minutes was set aside for Mkhize to read out a statement acknowledging that the process of appointing Digital Vibes was irregular and had contravened the Public Finance Management Act. He flatly denied having influenced the awarding of the contract or personally benefiting from it. Bizarrely, he refused to acknowledge any conflict of interest in his former spokesperson and ex-PA scoring a lucrative contract to provide services to him as minister. His argument is that he didn’t know they were working for the company in question.
The press conference ended abruptly after half an hour, as Mkhize’s spokesperson Lwazi Manzi kept on telling the few journalists who were able to make it at such short notice that the minister had other engagements to attend to. Reporters were only allowed to send questions to Manzi, who picked and chose which to read out to Mkhize. Media were not allowed to ask him direct or follow up questions.
Mkhize’s sham of a press conference has left us with more questions than answers. Sir, since you tried every trick in the book to evade accountability, here are the questions you haven’t still answered:
- Why and who made the decision to acquire an external agency to work on communicating your work on NHI and Covid-19 when the department has a fully-fledged communications unit and you employ a personal spokesperson?
- Who set the contract amount at R150m and how exactly was it awarded?
- When did you find out that your past associates were the main beneficiaries of this contract?
- The moment you found out, why did you allow them to continue doing communications work despite the glaring conflict of interest?
- Did you disclose your personal relationship with them to the department?
- Why did it have to take revelations in the media for you to act and put a stop to the theft?
Lastly sir, Bandile Masuku lost his job as Gauteng health MEC after the SIU found he had failed to exercise proper oversight over a rotten personal protective equipment tender. Before he was dismissed as MEC, Masuku was asked to step aside while investigations were ongoing. Note that he was never found guilty of personally benefiting from the contract for him to take the fall. Why are you being obstinate and not following this example set by a fellow ANC administration?
You have no business being in office while this investigation is going on. As the country’s chief communicator on Covid-19, you cannot expect the nation to listen to and trust anything you say while such a massive cloud hangs over your head.
Your name has been associated with allegations of corruption in the past and you have always got away with a simple denial. This time a denial won’t cut it. These allegations are too serious to sweep under the carpet. We suggest you set up another press conference where you will finally do the honourable thing and step aside, failing which President Cyril Ramaphosa must force you to until we get to bottom of this saga.
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