The involvement of South African Social Security Agency chief executive Totsie Memela-Khambula in "fraudulent" contracts worth R45.5-million has highlighted her role in the alleged concealment of corruption in Sassa.
The involvement of South African Social Security Agency chief executive Totsie Memela-Khambula in “fraudulent” contracts worth R45.5-million has highlighted her role in the alleged concealment of corruption in Sassa.
Moreover, Kwasa Food Supplies, a company implicated by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) in fraud in Sassa, is still doing business with the agency, and has a R45.6-million cleaning contract despite findings and allegations of corruption against it.
The Mail & Guardian reported last May that senior officials in Sassa had accused Memela-Khambula of ignoring corruption, following revelations that the Eastern Cape office had awarded the three-year contract to Kwasa Food through alleged nepotism.
Peter Mama, the director of Kwasa Food, is the brother-in-law of Mziwonke Mekuto, who was on the bid evaluation committee that assessed potential service providers for the cleaning tender. Mekuto is also the acting general manager of corporate service at Sassa Eastern Cape.
Email correspondence and documents showed that Memela-Khambula knew about the alleged nepotism in March last year, but had not instituted an investigation, despite promising to do so, until after the M&G’s May report.
Memela-Khambula later told the M&G that she had roped in law enforcement agencies to investigate the bidding and evaluation process, and would not hesitate to cancel the contract should any wrongdoing be unearthed.
In the SIU report, released on 25 January, findings were made against Mama and he had criminal charges recommended against his name for a “fraudulent” R22.4-million contract to distribute food parcels in the Eastern Cape.
The investigation followed a July 2020 proclamation signed by President Cyril Ramaphosa to look into corruption and fraud related to the government’s R152-billion spend as part of its response to the Covid-19 outbreak.
Kwasa Food and Bendalo Holdings, which the SIU said had received a fraudulent contract of about R23.1-million, were named in the report for a slew of irregularities, including not having the correct details about intended beneficiaries of the food parcels they were contracted to deliver.
“This resulted in the manipulation of the process to benefit non-qualifying beneficiaries. About 33 379 food parcels were purchased and delivered to various communities of the Eastern Cape province,” reads the report.
“The SIU investigation found that the service providers did not arrive at the venues on time and in certain instances the food parcels were incomplete. It was further established that Sassa vehicles and personnel were used to deliver the food parcels to the recipients.”
Memela-Khambula, along with five other managers from the Eastern Cape, were found to have facilitated the alleged fraudulent contracts, and disciplinary action was recommended against the chief executive and her managers in October.
The SIU found that Memela-Khambula had written to the treasury in December 2019 and requested to deviate from normal procurement processes for the food parcel tender, which had been cancelled “on grounds not clearly substantiated”.
Memela-Khambula wanted to source quotations from the companies that had tendered a bid for the food contract in August 2019.
The treasury, in January 2020, granted Memela-Khambula’s request with specific conditions, which included that Sassa should submit the cost estimate for the six-month contract to the treasury for verification.
“Sassa continued with this process without complying with the [treasury] conditions, which rendered the process irregular. The closing date for the bid process was 24 March 2020,” the SIU found.
On 23 April 2020, Sassa appointed Bendalo Holdings and Kwasa Food to “procure, supply and deliver food parcels in various districts of the Eastern Cape”. The service level agreements between the two providers and Sassa “were backdated to 1 April 2020, which amounts to fraud”, the SIU found.
The SIU recommended action against Memela-Khambula as well as five managers in the Eastern Cape, Bandile Maqethuka, Yanga Depha, Lungile Qabisisa, Vuyolwethu Bukula and Sisanda Kimbili.
The SIU said its October referrals were acknowledged, but no action had been taken.
Corruption cover up
Meanwhile, highly-placed sources in Sassa claimed that the reason Memela-Khambula “overlooked the blatantly corrupt” awarding of the R45.6-million cleaning contract to Kwasa Food was because the chief executive knew the SIU findings against her related to the food parcels contract.
“She went on [news channel] eNCA and said she would cancel the Kwasa cleaning contract, which was a lie. Kwasa is still benefiting millions of rand from Sassa money, and the chief executive is mute about it,” said a source, who asked to remain anonymous.
Sassa spokesperson Paseka Letsatsi, speaking on behalf of the agency and its chief executive, said the unit had not briefed Sassa about its findings.
“Kindly note that the SIU is yet to provide Sassa with the formal report after following their own internal protocols. Currently the chief executive cannot action the recommendation of the SIU report without getting it formally and, in the meantime, you can contact the department of social development as the employer,” Letsatsi said.
The M&G sent questions to social development departmental spokesperson Lumka Oliphant, who acknowledged the query and said it was for the Eastern Cape office to answer.
When alerted that Sassa had specifically referred the M&G to the national office, Oliphant said she would call the publication. She had not done so by the time of publication.
But SIU spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago slammed the contention that the unit had not informed Sassa about its graft findings, adding that Memela-Khambula was informed long before the presidency made the report public.
“We vehemently deny that Sassa is not aware of the same disciplinary referrals for misconduct referred to it by the SIU. Some were delivered and acknowledged as received on 20 July 2021, and others on 12 October 2021,” he said. “We are in possession of the acknowledgment of receipt from Sassa as evidence in this effect.
“We also had a meeting with Sassa executives where the office of the chief executive was represented on 03 November 2021. All the information concerning cases of misconduct that were referred to them was shared accordingly, albeit at a high level, as they were in possession of the referrals already at the time,” Kganyago added.
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