Tembisa Hospital probe reaches officials’ homes and pensions
JOHANNESBURG — A Special Tribunal order has frozen about R42.4 million in cash, property, pension benefits and investments linked to an investigation into Tembisa Hospital procurement. The order marks a further move against assets held by people the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) says helped suppliers obtain hospital contracts.
The preservation order prevents the disposal of assets belonging to Zacharia Tshisele, his civil wife Phumudzo Tshisele, his customary wife Fulufhelo Lineth Tshililo, and connected entities and associates. It also restricts payments and dealings involving others named in the SIU’s investigation, including Joseph Fhumulani Muthaphuli and Ernest Monnakgotla, a former Tembisa Hospital area manager and member of its quotation adjudication committee.
Among the assets restrained are two high-value properties. The order also prevents the Government Employees Pension Fund and Government Pensions Administration Agency from paying out Tshisele’s pension, valued at more than R1 million. A preservation order keeps assets available while legal proceedings continue; it does not, by itself, establish that everyone named has committed a crime.
The SIU links the latest order to an investigation into approximately R100 million in payments it suspects were kickbacks to hospital officials. Those alleged payments are connected to procurement deals worth about R600 million. Investigators say Tshisele was connected to two supplier networks: one associated with Stefan Joel Govindraju, involving 75 companies that received about R600 million from the hospital, and another associated with Rudolf Mazibuko, involving 17 companies that received about R283 million.
According to the SIU, Tshisele was able to initiate procurement processes in his role as an operational nursing manager and confirm that goods had been received, allowing suppliers to be paid. The unit alleges that he was directly involved in transactions worth approximately R15.9 million. It says the individual transactions were kept below R500,000, avoiding a competitive bidding process, and that some goods were unnecessary, not delivered or only partly delivered. These remain investigative allegations.
The SIU said earlier this month that Tshisele had paid R13.53 million to the unit and that its civil investigation to recover further proceeds was continuing. The new order widens the assets protected from disposal while that recovery work proceeds. The larger question for investigators is how much of the money allegedly diverted through Tembisa Hospital contracts can ultimately be recovered for the public.
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