Gauteng MEC shifts corruption focus to healthcare workers

Abstract

As the Hawks Special Investigating Unit last month began probing nine suspect contracts worth almost R1billion awarded by Gauteng’s Health Department, its’ Health MEC, Qedani Mahlangu, singled out rogue healthcare workers.
In an exclusive interview with Izindaba, Mahlangu claimed syndicates involving doctors, nurses and others workers were bleeding her budget via a variety of scams ranging from ‘pirate’ surgery to wholesale trading in life-saving commodities.
Mahlangu, incumbent since May 8th last year after her predecessor, Brian Hlongwane left under a tender-awarding cloud, initiated a separate five-pronged police probe into systemic staff-related corruption about which she said she had ‘volumes of documentation’.
A team of detectives had worked on some cases for six months and were ‘close’ to making arrests in what she believes is a doctor syndicate performing lucrative operations on foreign patients, claiming them to be indigent.
Qedani says the patients turn out to have visas and to have paid for their flights to South Africa.