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- Three weeks before she was murdered, Babita Deokaran identified more than 200 "possibly fraudulent" companies doing business with Tembisa Hospital that she felt needed further scrutiny.
- The Gauteng Department of Health failed to act on her concerns that as much as R850 million meant to fund healthcare for some of the country's poorest citizens was being stolen.
- News24 can reveal that a complex web of letterbox companies - 20 entities that exist only on paper - extracted R60 million in contracts from the hospital in six weeks.
Tembisa Hospital bosses splurged R500 000 on 100 leather wingback chairs – this deal just one of a surge of dubious payments flagged by Babita Deokaran before she was assassinated.
A News24 investigation, drawing from key documents contained in thousands of Deokaran’s emails, can reveal that the East Rand hospital was turned into a contract factory. In four months, it processed more than 1 200 purchase orders worth more than R600 million.
While struggling with overcrowding, staff shortages and a dearth of funding, the hospital channelled nearly R60 million in payments to letterbox companies that exist only on paper. Twenty entities which simultaneously billed the hospital are controlled by four people. Each registered five companies on the same day and provided fake addresses when doing so.
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Among them is Johannesburg sound technician Samendran Chin, whose companies raked in nearly R8 million through 22 individual Tembisa Hospital purchase orders. He did this in the space of six weeks, and while holding down a full-time job.
Deokaran identified 217 companies doing business with the hospital that scored thousands of "possibly fraudulent" contracts and called for an immediate stop to payments and an urgent forensic probe.
If her suspicions are proven true, Tembisa Hospital bosses spent vast amounts of money on goods and services in a manner that exploited a loophole in public procurement legislation. This has never been fully investigated by the Gauteng Department of Health, despite Deokaran’s pleas before she was murdered.
Ground zero: Tembisa Hospital
Looking at the hospital's buying patterns in the four months between April and June in 2021, Deokaran found that 1 203 purchase orders - valued between R400 000 and R500 000 – had been processed.
Collectively, this is nearly triple the amount of purchase orders for the nine largest hospitals in Gauteng combined.
For goods and services valued below R500 000, the hospital CEO has delegation to sign off, outside the need for deviations and a more rigorous procurement process. Deokaran’s suspicion was rooted in both the sheer number of contracts and their value. It points to the practice of "split invoicing", regarded by forensic investigators and auditors as a strategy to avoid transparent procurement processes.
An internal Gauteng health department expenditure table reveals that, over five years, the number of purchase orders increased tenfold, and their collective value rose exponentially. This surge in spending is what set Deokaran on the trail.
Letterbox barons
A News24 investigation which has spanned six months delved into the list of companies named by Deokaran. Publicly available data from several hundred company searches revealed a pattern: key individuals each controlled five entities which billed Tembisa Hospital simultaneously.
A closer look at 20 of these firms revealed that they were controlled by just four people: Samendran Chin, Sydney Thindelo, Kelvin Sills and Meshan Govender. In each case, Companies and Intellectual Property Commission data indicate that they were appointed as directors of five firms each on the same day.
The businesses sport obscure names. None have official websites. None are registered with the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (Sahpra), a prerequisite for trading in medical goods.
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Over weeks, News24 travelled across the province, visiting the registered business addresses submitted to the CIPC by those in control of these companies, and all turned out to be fake. Several do not exist on the map, one address is that of a Dutch Reformed Church, another is a guesthouse. One of the purported business premises is a family home, purchased more than a decade ago.
The only link to officialdom is that the companies are all registered with the central supplier database, enabling them to bid for state contracts. There was no shortage from Tembisa Hospital: between May and June in 2021, 129 contracts were awarded to companies controlled by the four, at a rate of nearly three per day, according to Gauteng health department data in possession of News24.
These contracts ranged from the provision of everything from masks to suture kits. Hidden among them is the purchase of 100 bonded leather wingback chairs at a price of R495 000, billed through one of Thindelo’s companies, Sogaki. The purchase price falls just within hospital CEO Ashley Mthunzi’s delegation of authority.
Mthunzi and the Gauteng health department did not respond to questions regarding this purchase, or whether any of the contracts were examined in a randomised compliance audit conduct after Deokaran was killed. She had requested a targeted investigation. This has yet to be conducted.
The smiling beneficiaries
37-year-old Sydney Thindelo accounts for the largest haul of the four, with 43 individual contracts amounting to a total take of R20.1 million in less than two months. According to publicly available documents, he lives in the Johannesburg suburb of Northwold, and at one point worked for a city accountancy firm.
His five separate business addresses were visited, and no offices could be found. In response to questions, he said only: "I have seen the article. I just want to confirm that I have nothing to do with the unfortunate thing that happened to Mrs Babita."
The youngest of the businessmen at 24, Sills’ companies saw R17.75 million in processed payments, according to documents obtained by News24. The 36 contracts pushed his way were valued between R487 000 and R498 000.
One of his firms, Umathora, supplied 2 000 hand towels to Tembisa Hospital at a price of approximately R230 each, excluding VAT.
Repeated efforts to contact Sills were unsuccessful, and questions and allegations were put to him via the email address he used in business dealings with the hospital. News24 hand delivered a letter to a relative at an address in Brackenfell, Cape Town. He did not respond.
Meshan Govender was appointed as a director of his five companies on 11 May 2020. A year later, he landed 28 Tembisa Hospital contracts worth R13.83 million. All the entities billed the hospital interchangeably and at the same time. Often, payments to several of his companies were processed on the same day.
There is little public information available about the 27-year-old. Questions and allegations were put to him via several email addresses, among them amosmosia068@gmail.com, which was used for official correspondence in his business called Zabate. He could not be reached.
Samendran Chin is employed by a prominent Johannesburg music company as a sound engineer, News24 confirmed. It is understood that he is viewed as a valued employee owing to his work ethic. He juggled work along with the business operation of his companies - all trading with Tembisa Hospital.
In a conversation at his Melrose Arch workplace, Chin said he had been told not to speak to journalists, but would not say by whom. Questions and allegations were put to him in writing, and he did not respond.
The collective value of contracts awarded to his companies is R7.88 million.
We visited 20 separate addresses where these businesses purportedly operated from. We could not locate a single office or warehouse.
Patterns
In the course of examining thousands of documents, the email addresses linked to the businesses trading with the hospital looked strikingly similar.
Antionette Le Roux is a 57-year-old employed at a bank on Johannesburg’s East Rand. Five of her companies – formed on the same day - were flagged by Deokaran after they scored Tembisa Hospital contracts worth R9.5 million.
When visiting a Kibler Park address linked to her, a man who identified himself as her brother-in-law expressed disbelief.
"Owns businesses, definitely not… not her. She works in a bank." He said he would pass on a request for contact. She did not respond and could not be reached by phone.
Accountable
As CEO, Mthunzi is central in the "possibly fraudulent" payments and soaring hospital expenditure first identified by Deokaran. In response to earlier questions, the Department of Health said that Mthunzi was appointed to act in the post on 28 April 2021 and then permanently installed on 1 June.
"The matters being referred to in your enquiry predates his appointment there," the department said.
According to purchase order data and the dates on which they were processed, only one of the 129 contracts linked to the letterbox companies predated his appointment. Some contracts were processed within a week of his arrival.
He did not respond directly to questions.
The Department of Health said:
"The department wishes to assure the public that decisive action will be taken against its employees who are found to have failed to discharge their responsibilities in line with the Public Finance Management Act and other applicable prescripts.
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"Given that the issues related to the tragic death and murder of Ms Deokaran’s are still under investigation by law enforcement agencies, [the] GDoH will not be providing running media commentary on these matters."
Silent
This week, the DA in Gauteng called for the suspension of Gauteng Health CFO Lerato Madyo, after News24 revealed her inaction in investigating Deokaran’s concerns and her lies surrounding what she had done to probe the flagged payments.
Gauteng Premier David Makhura, who was vocal in the wake of Deokaran’s murder, would not engage on censure.
"We will not be distracted from our efforts to crack down on corruption in the province by those who give orders to kill whistleblowers so that they can continue to loot state resources," he said at the time.
This week, he would not drawn to comment on whether there should be consequences for health department bosses who failed to implement Deokaran’s recommendations for an investigation.
"The premier will give space to law enforcement agencies to do their work… At the moment we cannot comment on what happened [in the] days leading to the passing of Ms Deokaran," his spokesperson, Vuyo Mhaga, said.
