Evidence wa ka Ngobeni and Peter Dickson The Eastern Cape MEC for Health, Monwabisi Goqwana, has been quietly running a private ambulance services company linked to a string of hospitals in the province.
Goqwana, who was appointed after the 1999 general elections, is a director of the company Pobedi Ambulance Services, which provides services to patients at more than seven hospitals in the province. The hospitals include All Saints, Umtata General, Mjanyane, Zitulele, St Barnabas, Gazbile, Zitulele and Mdwaleni. Goqwana was a superintendent at Umtata General hospital before he took up his current position in June 1999. Goqwana was registered as director of Pobedi in November 1998 and ran the business with two other directors, Xola Tshandu and Andile Nkumanda. The company has been accused of ill-treating workers and failing to pay them their salaries. Workers say Goqwana has fired a number of employees without following proper procedures. In one of the cases Goqwana is alleged to have fired workers who had gone to his house to demand their payment. Goqwana, who denied allegations that he mistreated workers, confirmed that he owned the company but said he had sold it two or three weeks ago. However, Goqwana said he could remember neither the name of the buyer nor the name of the law firm that handled the transaction. “I was only concerned with getting rid of my company, [not] the name of the company that bought it. I don’t have the documents with me now because I am in my office,” he said. Goqwana is also a director of another medi-cal company, Philani Polyclinic, which was registered in 1998. Goqwana said he was not aware of his directorship at Philani Polyclinic. “As far as I can remember that venture did not materialise,” he said. “Now that I know that I am a director there maybe I will ask them [his fellow directors] to remove my name as a director,” he said. The revelations about Goqwana’s business affairs come in the wake of a major financial crisis in his department. The embattled department, suffering from drug, food and fuel shortages and plummeting morale among overworked nurses and doctors, admitted its long-denied financial crisis to the legislature this week. Goqwana said he had tried to sell his company after he was appointed MEC but accused some ambulance companies in the area, including Life Star, Quick Care and Rapid Response, of committing themselves to buying his company and then failing to raise the money. However, Life Star director Anan Naidoo dismissed Goqwana’s claims that his company had offered to buy Pobedi and suggested Goqwana was in fact trying to shut his operation down. “He [Goqwana] never sold his company to us, we were here to help the other company, Rapid Response, to run the business,” said Naidoo, adding that Goqwana has refused them permission to operate on their own. Goqwana denied that he abused his position, saying he had merely informed Life Star that it could not operate in the province without getting permission from the government. “I told them that if they want to operate their own company they have to open their licence,” Goqwana said. Naidoo hit back at Goqwana, saying that his company, which has been operating for the past 33 years, did not have to apply for a licence in the province. “We have a national licence and we do not have to apply for one if we want to operate in Umtata,” he said.