While government departments and service providers quibble, work at what should be the country’s flagship hospital in Pretoria is still not complete. Photo Delwyn Verasamy
Bribery claims, a billion rand wasted and a military hospital in the nation’s capital that, 10 years later, is still not fit for use by the country’s president.
For a year the Mail & Guardian has investigated how more than R1-billion was spent on refurbishing the 1 Military Hospital at Thaba Tshwane, Pretoria. We reported that by as late as December, there were still wires hanging from the first floor, half-built, unpainted walls and no sight of the multimillion-rand medical equipment that was procured for one of the medical floors.
Now we can reveal that a senior South African National Defence Force (SANDF) member took a bribe from the company that was paid to do the work. The official has since resigned from the force and resides in Namibia. The defence force stopped the investigation and the company involved, which confirmed paying the bribe, is now in limbo waiting on funds before it will proceed its work at the 1 Military Hospital.
1 Mil not fit for purpose
In 2014, questions arose as to why former president Jacob Zuma did not choose to be admitted to the once-flagship military hospital for his annual check-up. In the past six years the hospital has raked up R1-billion in outsourcing costs.
In 2021, the hospital’s first floor was operating in only a limited capacity. The department of defence told parliament that the hospital exhausted “most of the South African Medical Health Service (SAMHS) budget due to the outsourcing of healthcare services resulting from inadequate infrastructure and shortage of critical resources required for the provision of healthcare services.”
Following an oversight visit in late 2020, the parliamentary portfolio committee of defence noted that military organisations are increasingly using outsourcing as a “better option” to deliver services.
“The SAMHS did not outsource healthcare services as a cost-saving strategy, but mainly because of a lack of resources and specialised skills to carry out its duties. Various resource management challenges hinder the provision of an all-inclusive medical service and compel 1 Military Hospital to outsource certain healthcare services that are either not available or cannot be provided for in-house at a high cost to the SANDF and the state,” the committee found.
In fact, outsourcing of medical services proves to be the result of incompetence and widespread corruption from both the departments of defence and public works.
The complicated web of corrupt activities that the M&G tracked includes cash payments, theft, alleged requests for bribes, irregular expenditure and the mismanagement of state funds exceeding R1-billion. Some of these allegations were finally revealed in an independent forensic investigative report presented to parliament’s joint standing committee on defence two weeks ago.
This report had taken the department of defence more than a year to present before the committee.
While the committee members continued requesting the report from the department the M&G was revealing an allegedly corrupt relationship between SANDF and the acting implementing agent, Tectura Architects, which had been retained and paid to work on the upgrades.
No bribe, no work
The M&G found out the department of public works appointed Tectura Architects as consultants to help refurbish and upgrade 1 Military Hospital in 2011. However, due to a prolonged process, Kevin Slabber from Tectura Architects told the M&G last year that they were initially appointed by the department to do the work on 18 January 2013.
Asked about what their services in 2013 entailed, Slabber explained that in 2013 the department said Tectura Architects were to refurbish and upgrade the first floor of the hospital; redesign the chemistry laboratory on the second floor; and build a new histology laboratory.
Slabber said from 2013 to 2021 he and his team of engineers delivered a full set of “coordinated drawings, specifications and a bill of quantities”. In return, they received more than R35-million over the past five years for work between 2015 and mid-2020. He ascribes the multimillion-rand paycheck to the scope of work increasing consistently and then having to compile new plans each time the scope of work expanded. Slabber maintains his firm wants to finish the work.
However, in February, Slabber claimed that though Tectura was paid to do the work, he also paid brigadier general Sydney September Fortuin — who acted as a former facilities manager for the refurbishment project — bribes to retain their position as consultants.
“That general told me if I do not give him the money, he will find someone else to do the job,” claims Slabber.
Slabber claims Fortuin told him “this is how it works” when demanding a cash payment after each payment Tectura Architects received for work done at the hospital.
“Even when I indicated I’m not going to the bank to get cash from the company’s account, I was told to make out a cheque,” which he did, Slabber admitted to the M&G.
In total, Tectura Architects paid the brigadier general roughly R25 000 in multiple payments, said Slabber, after first saying the payments amounted to “no more than R40 000”.
‘An innocent act’
But the report before parliament states that Fortuin played a key role in the starting phase of the refurbishment project and was paid at least R140 000 in cash by the principal consultant, Tectura Architects. The M&G previously reported the now-retired SAMHS surgeon general, lieutenant general Dr Zola Dabula, together with other senior officials at the defence force and the department of public works, are implicated in multimillion-rand graft at 1 Military Hospital, dating back more than a decade.
“Corrupt payments in the amount of at least R140 000 were made … This amount was paid in cash over a period of time. The [consultant’s] version is that these payments were made to the senior official at the times when the principal consultant submitted their invoices for payment,” reads the report.
Slabber claims it was an innocent act, and that he regrets not asking Fortuin to sign a form for collecting the money. Slabber says after each cash withdrawal he would write on the back of the slip what the money was for — in multiple cases it was cash payments for Fortuin.
According to Slabber, on more than two occasions he was told by Fortuin: “Drive to my office and bring me cash in a brown envelope.”
Slabber, however, contests the report alleging he paid R140 000 to Fortuin.
It was only after Tectura Architects’ senior partner, Moorrees Janse van Rensburg, queried the cash payments that senior officials in the department were made aware of it.
“I thought the police would come and put the guy in a police van, but then we never heard about it again,” says Slabber.
According to the report, there was an inquiry into the payments in 2016, but that inquiry was soon abandoned. The SANDF did not respond to questions regarding the inquiry, or any other queries relating to the report.
Slabber claims that Fortuin “started with his antics” in 2015, when the defence department took over the role as implementing agent from the department of public works.
The now retired brigadier general Zola Dabula was earlier implicated in corruption in this case. Photos: Delwyn Verasamy & Craig Nieuwenhuizen/Foto24/Gallo Images
Fortuin admits to unsound relationship
Speaking to the M&G, Fortuin gave his account of events that preceded his resignation in 2017.
“I admit there was an unsound relationship, but my work was always my main priority,” Fortuin says.
Fortuin served in the defence force for 34 years specialising in logistics. At the time he received cash from Tectura he acted as the facilities manager of the refurbishment project at 1 Military. He describes himself as “a pawn on a chess board,” in that he was not responsible for approving projects or signing off payments but was rather a pawn in the larger extent of the repair and maintenance programme, first introduced by public works in 2001.
However, he does not deny receiving money from Tectura and says he takes full responsibility for what is alleged in the forensic investigation in that there was an unsound relationship between him and Tectura.
Fortuin does disagree on how and why Tectura gave him money. He claims he only received R20 000 from Tectura, while the remaining R5 000 (of the total R25 000) was for corporate golf days sponsored by Tectura. These sponsors, asserts Fortuin, followed official channels and were formally approved by the department of defence.
The total amount of R20 000, claims Fortuin, was electronically paid into his bank account by Slabber following a hijack incident where he was held at gunpoint for over an hour.
“There was never a cheque issued, there were requests for golf sponsorships and then there was the time he came to me,” explains Fortuin.
He elaborates by saying after he was hijacked in Pretoria while on his way home, Slabber approached him and asked if he needed financial support. At first, Fortuin declined the offer. But at the time of the incident his brother was terminally ill and the money would have helped him. He told Slabber he would accept the money on condition it was seen as a loan.
“When they paid out my pension (after resigning in 2017), I phoned him (Slabber) and said I want to give you back your money. He did not answer until I was near Botswana. He said, ‘Don’t worry sir,’” recalls Fortuin.
“The R20 000 was one fatal mistake, and I cannot be excused for it,” says Fortuin.
Fortuin left the defence force in 2017 “out of frustration,” in that “order, control, and discipline” no longer exist in the department.
He now resides in Namibia where his wife owns a restaurant in Walvis Bay.
Tectura Architects: since 1936
Tectura Architects is owned by 89-year-old Moorrees Janse van Rensburg. The company was formed in 1936 and has since earned itself a well-established business portfolio, including work done for the department of public works and more than 60 projects for the University of Pretoria. Tectura traded under a joint venture of five architects in the 1980s. For the last 20 years the entity operated as a two-person partnership between Janse van Rensburg and Peter Kuhn, who died in February 2021.
As a joint venture, the company was not registered at the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) until July 2020.
Janse van Rensburg says he registered Tectura as a company due to his advancing age and after the partnership with Kuhn was dissolved at Kuhn’s death. Tectura Architects now has the unusual name Tecturaarch with three listed directors.
Speaking to the M&G, Janse van Rensburg acknowledged the forensic report and said the matter is being dealt with internally between his company and the department of defence.
“We saw the report, and we are responding to it. I do not say I deny it, I’m just saying it has happened and we are dealing with it. That is final,” says Janse van Rensburg.
Disputes between the then-implementing agents, the department of public works, and the department of defence led to the defence department becoming the main custodian of the refurbishment project in 2015. Tectura’s contract with public works was ceded to the defence department.
In 2015, when irregular cash payments were made to Fortuin, Tectura also became the principal agent of the refurbishment project, overseeing and appointing all contractors, including structural, mechanical, electrical and civil engineers.
In return, Tectura Architects received just more than R35-million between 2015 to mid-2020. This money was divided between the contractors appointed by Tectura as the principal agent.
The amount of R35-million is in contrast with what the department of defence told parliament in September 2015. It was then said services provided by Tectura Architects are valued at a total of R40 536 138.24.
Janse van Rensburg said Tectura did not receive additional payments for work done at 1 Military. He says their claims were verified and approved by senior officials.
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