According to a report presented before Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration in mid-February 2021, the Northern Cape has the highest number of government employees in Central South Africa who are registered on the Central Supplier Database (CSD) and have carried out business with the state. 

The provincial departments of Health, Social Development as well as Cooperative Governance, Human Settlements and Traditional Affairs, are at varying stages of their respective investigations into the matter.

Eleven cases at the Department of Health are at the disciplinary process level. The Department of Social Development, on the other end, has issued two of its employees with instructions to resign/unregister from the Central Supplier Database. This database serves as the source of all supplier information for varying organs of the state.

The Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration has expressed its concern at the high number of government employees that enter into business with the state, despite it being against the law.

As already mentioned, the Northern Cape has a far higher number of public servants illegally and unethically partnering with the state on projects, than its Central South African counterparts - the North West and the Free State. For example, in the 2020/21 period, the North West and the Free State have whittled down the number of public servants doing business with the state to 13 and 25 respectively, whereas the Northern Cape has 72.

In late 2020, the Hawks in the Northern Cape arrested six people for their alleged involvement in a near R10 million fraud scandal that rocked the provincial health department. The suspects included the project manager of the Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe Hospital in Kimberley. The Hawks said at the time that the alleged fraud dates back to a 2014 multi-regional renovation project. “Those contracts were awarded to various business entities whose directors were related,” said Hawks provincial spokesperson, Dimakatso Mooi.

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