corruption probe
Wonder Hlongwa
KwaZulu-Natal’s Department of Health says it is close to making a breakthrough in its investigation into an allegedly fraudulent scheme to siphon money from provincial coffers to the Inkatha Freedom Party.
The department’s corruption unit investigator, Leon Wolmarans, says it has been interviewing Durban businessman Sateesh Isseri for two years.
Last week the Mail & Guardian reported that Isseri has been in the state witness protection programme for a year after co-operating in a police investigation into an alleged scam which involved senior civil servants giving him cheques worth more than R1- million to dispense to other officials.
Wolmarans says his unit was formed to investigate escalating corruption in the province. In the past two years it has discovered cheque fraud amounting to R15-million.
Isseri claimed he had struck a deal with the provincial government to supply medical equipment and soon afterwards began receiving extra money.
But provincial health department representative Dave McGlew said this week the department knows nothing about a tender for the supplies Isseri was to provide the government.
Isseri alleged his deal turned sour when a third cheque he received was stopped after his bank was tipped off about the scam. He has since sued the provincial government for his outstanding payments.
”We have always known that the corruption pyramid goes higher up, but getting people convicted has been difficult.
”But we will be making high-profile convictions in the near future,” says McGlew.
The corruption unit is investigating more than 180 corruption cases in the health department alone, and McGlew says its work has revealed that corruption spreads throughout the provincial departments.
Some high-ranking IFP officials have distanced themselves from Isseri. One of them named in his statement to the police, former KwaZulu-Natal MEC for finance Zenzele Mhlungu, says ”the name [Isseri] doesn’t ring a bell in my mind”.
Mhlungu could also not remember a government official, Wesley Buthelezi, whom Isseri claims introduced him to Mhlungu.
Isseri’s statement claims he was taken on a hunting expedition to the Umfolozi Game Reserve at the invitation of Mhlungu. But Mhlungu said he only goes to game reserves to photograph animals.