Defence and military veterans minister Thandi Modise has demanded that all soldiers involved in the controversial and illegal procurement of the Interferon drug from Cuba face the music sooner rather than later.
Modise was briefing the portfolio committee on defence on Wednesday on what her department has done about the findings of a ministerial task team (MTT) established by her predecessor Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula to probe the Interferon saga.
Modise said the ball was in the court of SA National Defence Force (SANDF) chief Gen Rudzani Maphwanya since the procurement of the drug was championed by members in uniform whom he leads.
The MTT had identified several anomalies in the 2020 procurement in three batches of the Interferon drug from Cuba which led to the spending of R33m. It could have been more than R200m wasted had it not been for defence CFO Siphiwe Sokhela, who resisted releasing funds to pay for the second and third batches of the drug delivered by the Cubans.
According to the task team, former surgeon-general Dr Zola Dabula was the individual who initiated the process of SA procuring the Cuban drug to ensure soldiers were healthy before their fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.
This, the MTT found, Dabula had done through petitioning and convincing the Military Command Council of the effectiveness of Interferon and SA’s need to procure it for military staff.
Dabula was in concurrence with then SANDF chief, retired General Sello Shoke, among others within the military.
However, the process was flawed and in contravention of the Public Finance Management Act as well as other prescripts such as regulations governing the procurement of medical supplies from outside countries.
Modise said lessons had been learnt and her department was hard at work filling in the gaps to avoid history repeating itself.
But to send a strong message “we are demanding action”, she told the portfolio committee.
“What is clear is that the MTT found that while we can blame Covid for putting us in the situation we were in and while we can justify the need for panic, there are things that should never have been done without following the laws of the country, especially the financial processes within the department itself.
“We have discussed these issues with the chief of the defence. I have instructed him to implement the decisions. The names of three officials including the former surgeon-general [Dabula] and others are in the report.”
Committee members called for Sokhela to be commended for saving the country from flushing a further R182m down the drain — for the benefit of the Cubans but to the detriment of SA.
This after the MTT found that Sokhela had rejected spirited advances from top-ranking military officials, including incumbent defence administration boss Sonto Kudjoe, Dabula and Shoke, pressuring him to pay the Cubans for the second and third batches of the drug that was never used.
“The CFO mentioned that the payment of the Interferon was never discussed before its arrival even though there had been a number of meetings that presented an opportunity for this to be discussed,” the MTT report reveals.
“The CFO was called into a meeting with the new [secretary of defence] [ambassador Sonto Kudjoe] and the then chief of SANDF [Shoke] to persuade him [the CFO] to consider paying TECNOIMPORT for the second and the third consignments.
“The CFO informed the MTT that he still declined the request to pay for the second and the third consignments as doing so would place him in an invidious situation, given the fact that he had since learnt that the Interferon had not been properly procured in line with the relevant public finance and public health prescripts.”
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