Tembisa Hospital bosses splurged R500 000 on 100 leather wingback chairs – this deal just one of a surge of dubious payments flagged by Babita Deokaran before she was assassinated.
A News24 investigation, drawing from key documents contained in thousands of Deokaran’s emails, can reveal that the East Rand hospital was turned into a contract factory. In four months, it processed more than 1 200 purchase orders worth more than R600 million.
While struggling with overcrowding, staff shortages and a dearth of funding, the hospital channelled nearly R60 million in payments to letterbox companies that exist only on paper. Twenty entities which simultaneously billed the hospital are controlled by four people. Each registered five companies on the same day and provided fake addresses when doing so.
Special report | Why Babita Deokaran was murdered
