DA wants answers on unlicensed PPE suppliers

8 September 2020

The Democratic Alliance (DA) wants answers in respect of the Northern Cape government’s excessive use of unlicensed suppliers of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and medical goods. This comes amidst reports that the Northern Cape, alongside Limpopo and Gauteng provinces, channelled as much as 99% of their expenditure for controlled products, to unlicensed suppliers.

After the provincial Covid-19 expenditure list was made available, we could not help but notice the highly questionable use of places like taverns, for the supply of medical goods and PPEs. Unless government was paying taverns for their alcohol to actually produce sanitizers, then we see no reason why such businesses were roped in to procure highly specialised medical equipment.

It is therefore little wonder that we saw a situation in the Northern Cape whereby inferior products were at times provided to health facilities, and why we saw things like tissue-paper catering gowns being supplied to hospital surgeries.

The pandemic undeniably caught the country off guard, and we can understand that, to a certain extent, the state of disaster did necessitate for procurement deviations to occur. However, a media report that indicates that four unlicensed suppliers are alleged to have received R36,2 million in payment as opposed to the R400 000 that was paid to a single licensed supplier, raises serious concerns.

The DA will submit parliamentary questions to the Premier, Dr Zamani Saul, for him to provide us with a more detailed breakdown in respect of the PPE procurement. In this regard, we want reasons why more licensed suppliers could not be utilised, what the experience of the unlicensed suppliers was, why they were awarded the contracts, as well as the pricing, quality and suitability of the products supplied by them. We also want to know whether any of the unlicensed suppliers had links to government officials and politicians, who may have assisted them in getting the contracts.

These are just some of the things that we need to know to be able to determine whether or not the use of the unlicensed suppliers can be justified or not.

For opportunistic and connected cadres to jump on Covid-19 as a get rich scheme is shameful. Furthermore, for government to enable this, is criminal, and demands accountability.

Issued by Andrew Louw, DA Northern Cape Provincial Leader, 8 October 2020