Tembisa Hospital CEO says no money was spent on skinny jeans, blames admin error

Embattled Tembisa Hospital CEO Dr Ashley Mthunzi has denied that the institution spent almost R500 000 on skinny jeans, instead saying that the money was spent on suture material.

This comes after an expose by News24 showed that the hospital purchased 200 pairs of skinny jeans, which amounts to R2 500 per pair.

The contract for the jeans was one of the transactions questioned by whistleblower Babita Deokaran. It is suspected to be one of the dodgy deals that led to Deokaran being killed.

Suture material

Speaking to Radio 702 on Thursday morning, Mthunzi claimed that the hospital had not actually purchased skinny jeans. Instead, the R498 000 was spent on suture material.

“I signed for suture material. We’ve got proof that the invoice was for suture material and what we received was suture material,” he said.

Admin error

Mthunzi claims it was an admin error for the suture material being mistaken for skinny jeans.

“The material code that was used was the skinny jeans material code,” the hospital CEO said. “But what was delivered was the suture material I had ordered.”

ALSO READ: Tembisa Hospital’s R500 000 skinny jeans contract one of the deals Babita Deokaran died for

Mthunzi was unable to provide an adequate answer on why, if the order of skinny jeans was an admin error, it had specific details about the jeans being for girls aged 6 to 7.

He said supply chain management at the hospital had checks and balances that wouldn’t allow for skinny jeans to be delivered instead of sutures.

Inez Chaste, the company run by former professional soccer player Themba Shabalala and his wife Evelyn, was only registered a month before it got the contract.

“I don’t look at the companies. The companies are put on the central supply database… And are taken from that central supplier database. I don’t look at the duration of the company.”

Mthunzi said he was told by the Quotation Adjudication Committee that the company ticked all the right boxes.  

The network of 45 shell companies that were awarded the contracts at Tembisa Hospital, according to the News24 report, exist only on paper. One of the companies’ addresses actually belonged to a creche that had been on the premises for years.

“We don’t have the capacity in terms of staff to go and visit companies addresses and so forth,” he said.

ALSO READ: Gauteng Health don’t value input from whistle-blowers – Outa

Those companies should be verified before they get into the central supplier database, he added.

Contracts below R500 000

One of the reasons the contracts awarded to the 45 shell companies raised suspicion is that all the contracts were valued at between R400 000 and R499 000.

The reason for this seems to be because Mthunzi could sign off any amount that is less than R500 000. The contracts then don’t have to go out to tender. 

In four months during the period the companies were given the contracts, 1 203 purchase orders between R400 000 and R499 000 were processed by Tembisa Hospital. 

The hospital made a string of suspicious purchases while under the helm of Mthunzi. These include buying 2 000 hand towels for about R230 each and 100 leather armchairs for R500 000.