PPE report: Most cellphones Limpopo health dept spent R10m on never distributed

The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) personal protective equipment (PPE) corruption report has revealed that Limpopo health department officials appointed mobile network MTN to supply the field workers with 10 000 cellphones during the first lockdown.

The cellphones were meant to be used for household screenings by department field workers to identify Covid-19 cases.

The contract was for 10 000 cellphones at R10 million.

But MTN agreed it would supply the phones on a 50/50 funded approach, meaning the cellphone giant would absorb 50% of the costs as part of their contribution towards fighting the pandemic.

Limpopo Health Department paid for 5 000 devices with 3GB of data at a reduced rate on a 6-month contract.

But according to the SIU’s PPE report, the department had only distributed 399 devices to five districts.

On top of that, the distributed devices did not have the appropriate application installed that was required for documenting Covid cases.

As a result, the remainder of the devices were never distributed to the intended users.

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The SIU did a physical counting of the devices in March last year, during which department Director-General Dr Muthei Dombo told investigators that “the application was still to be installed to enable the proper functioning of the cell phone as intended.”

But shortly after the SIU’s visit to the department, logistics staff, upon Dombo’s instruction, distributed the remaining devices to five districts.

“It was confirmed by Dr Dombo that these cell phones were distributed to the Community Health Workers without the installation of the cell phone application to be used for Covid-19 vaccination,” said the SIU report.

Dombo said the APP was not necessary for Covid-19 vaccination registrations.

Dombo’s attempt to remedy the otherwise fruitless and wasteful expenditure couldn’t save him in the end.

The SIU found that the devices were not fit for the intended process.

The PPE report also showed that MTN’s appointment did not comply with the provisions of section 24 in the Public Finance Management Act, in that Dr FT Mhlongo (HoD), Dombo and Mr Mudau (CFO) “failed to take effective and appropriate steps to prevent, within their area of responsibility, fruitless and wasteful expenditure.”

The SIU referred Mhlongo as the HoD for disciplinary and criminal charges, while Dombo and Mudau were referred for disciplinary charges only.

The department is implementing the recommendations.

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