The provincial MEC for Finance, Gadija Brown, says the Auditor-General (AG) went through all audit reports from all of the departments that did work involving PPE. She says the AG has since compiled a report but it's in a draft form and has been presented to the provincial executive committee (Exco) of government and they are satisfied with it.

This amidst a probe by the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) which is probing R52 million in PPE contracts across various departments and involving 12 service providers in the province. Brown says that the department is also awaiting the SIU report after the unit picked up discrepancies related to the supplies of PPEs.

She adds that the "only challenge we had was on some of the controls on inventory, because it was such short notice we didn't have store rooms to store all of the products we had procured but mostly the issues that we raised were picked up by HODs and relevant accounting officers, so we are very happy with the work the accounting officers have done together with AG SA stabilising that audit".
 
Brown says that the other issue that her department and the department of health picked up on, was the coveralls that were marked as sanitised overalls but they were actually preventative, not sanitised.

This then forced the department to go back to the supplier and manufactures who had boxed these coveralls incorrectly. This was also raised with the SIU.

She alludes that the SIU is soon expected to present its report to its committees. "I think in the new financial year we will all receive public report by the SIU and AG in all PPEs in the country. But other than that we are also comfortable with the outcome of the SIU investigation."  

OFM News previously reported that in August 2020 alone, the SIU received several complaints implicating the Treasury in the irregular procurement of personal protective equipment to six service providers.

According to the SIU’s presentation made to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) in Parliament, these contracts amount to over R16,6 million collectively. Brown came under fire in early August after media reports surfaced alleging the sons and close affiliates of ANC Secretary-General, Ace Magashule had scored big from PPE tenders awarded by her department.

The Sunday newspaper, City Press, published an article based off of a leaked list of service providers at the time, alluding to which service providers were implicated in Treasury’s PPE scandal. They included a company that organises an annual festival in the province that received R4,9 million, as well as an unregistered shisa nyama, allegedly not registered with the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission which also received a R4,3 million tender. 

OFM News