'Many PPE firms registered only after lockdown'

A number of companies that scored irregular awarded multi-million rand state PPE contracts were only registered after the national state of disaster was declared.

The Special Investigating Unit's report into its investigation on the multi-billion rand PPE contracts has revealed how the declaration of the state of disaster was abused by government officials and companies who flaunted supply chain rules to loot the state.

The report, made public by President Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday, noted how “persons in positions of authority” within government somehow believed that the declaration of a “national state of disaster” meant that all procurement is automatically now conducted on an “emergency” basis, and without compliance with any of the normal prescripts regulating public sector procurement.

It also revealed how other companies came into existence around the same time that the national state of disaster was declared by Ramaphosa in March 2020.

“Bearing in mind that the national state of disaster was declared on 15 March 2020, where after PPE procurement commenced in earnest certain service providers were found to have only been registered on the CIPC during February and March 2020,” stated the report.

It also stated that it was clear that those companies “would and could not have had demonstrable track records”.

The report stated how in other instances many companies were awarded contracts for the supply of PPE, which included items that qualified as medical devices which could only be supplied by service providers with necessary licences from the SA Health Products Regulatory Authority.

“Furthermore, the prescripts relating to the packaging, transportation and storage of such medical devices were not complied with in many instances,” the report stated.

Some companies were still awarded contracts while they were not registered on the CSD, as per government procurement and supply chain rules.