3P, the controversial consulting firm that cost the Gauteng health department R229-million over the past year, has had its contract terminated. But it’s not taking this lying down.
3P had been contracted to develop a programme management unit in the department to enhance skills and technical abilities.
On Monday, provincial minister of health Qedani Mahlangu told the Gauteng Legislature that she would be discontinuing the services of 3P following a review of the contract. She said that the department’s decision was in line with its new imperatives to ”cut down on the use of consultants” and ”[terminate] contracts for consultants who perform the work that could be performed by employees in the department”.
The consultancy created a ruckus when it was found that the department was spending exorbitant amounts of money on its services while Gauteng’s hospitals were in dire need of equipment and funds.
But this termination comes only five months after the department, under the former leadership of provincial minister Brian Hlongwa, renewed 3P’s contract for another three years. If its services had not been terminated, 3P would have been paid a further R582-million by 2011.
And 3P is not happy. According to Business Day, MD Richard Payne said that his company would be taking legal action to ensure it is paid R17-million it claims is owed to it by the department for services rendered, and that lawyers were currently filing papers at the South Gauteng High Court.
According to Jack Bloom, the Democratic Alliance’s health spokesperson, ”the department was not getting value for money from these consultants, who were in many cases duplicating work done by internal staff”.
On 3P’s court challenge contesting the cancellation of its services, Bloom says: ”There must be accountability as to why the department has found itself in this situation — Mahlangu’s cancellation of 3P raises questions about her predecessor, Brian Hlongwa’s, admitted close relationship with Payne, who he has described as a ‘friend’.”
Hlongwa’s lengthy relationship with Payne created controversy when it was exposed in April this year. Although Payne had represented Hlongwa in the purchase of his R7-million house in Bryanston, Johannesburg, Hlongwa denied any conflict of interest.
The Mail & Guardian reported last month that Fani Meso, a 3P employee seconded to the department and the department’s acting chief financial officer, was recently fired, although the department denied this had anything to do with his affiliation to 3P, but linked it instead to his ”non-performance”.