South Africa’s Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, better known as the Hawks, will on Monday arraign seven people for defrauding the Department of Health to the tune of R8 million.
The seven, which included two government officials and five company directors, were arrested on Friday by the Hawks’ Serious Commercial Crime Investigation in Bloemfontein after an investigation revealed R8 million had been paid to service providers even though there was no evidence they delivered the services.
Captain Christopher Singo of The Hawks said the septuplet “are expected to appear before the Bloemfontein Regional Court on Monday, 02 August 2021 where they will be facing charges of fraud, forgery, uttering, money laundering, and corruption.”
Singo stated that during the regulatory audit in the Department of Health the auditor-general’s team asked for information on various payments to providers, as well as questions about the procurement processes.
He said, “As a result, an internal investigation followed whereby it was discovered that false or forged “requests for payment advices” were submitted during the period of January 2011 until December 2015 for payments with regards to the service providers.”
A total amount of more than R8 million was paid to the service providers.
He said it is further alleged that no evidence could be found whether the service providers rendered the actual services.
“As a result, the Department of Health was prejudiced and suffered a total loss of more than R8 million.”
