DA: AG needs to probe corruption in Limpopo medical waste removal
The Democratic Alliance has asked the auditor general (AG) to investigate why Limpopo’s medical waste removal has payments with identical, repetitive amounts, to the cent, when this is mathematically improbable.
“This is because medical waste is weighed and this is rarely, if ever, the same month-on-month,” DA spokesman Wilmot James said on Sunday.
The regulations governing medical waste removal were necessarily very strict, he said. Hospitals and clinics had to segregate waste into five categories – human or anatomical waste; infectious non-anatomical waste; sharps, such as needles and syringes; chemical, including pharmaceutical waste; and general waste. These were weighed on site for every collection event.
Categories one to four were considered to be hazardous waste and five general waste, the former attracting a much higher biohazard waste removal rate.
By law, a waste collection document (WCD), also known as a tracking document or waste manifest or dangerous goods declaration, had to accompany each load weighed on site, from the point of generation to the point of disposal.
“It is obvious that there are opportunities for corruption at each step along the way – (1) including general waste in the bio-hazardous category and paid for at the latter higher rate; (2) inaccurately calibrated weighing scales; and (3) inaccurate recording of weight. But the most breathtakingly brazen and clearly illegal form must surely be when money is paid out as if it is a debit order unconnected to weight requirements,” James said.
A written answer by Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi to a parliamentary question asked by James, showed that from April 26, 2013 to March 12, 2015 the Limpopo health department made 24 payments of R4,602,364.81 each, one payment of R2,655,651.12, and one of R4,823,669.07 to the waste removal contractor.
From April 28, 2015 to October 28, 2015 the Limpopo health department made seven payments of made R5,054,454.41 each and one of R692,346.02 to the contractor.
By contrast, the Eastern Cape health department made a total of 27 payments to the medical waste removal contractor in that province from June 19, 2013 to November 9, 2015. Not a single one of the payments was the same and the vast majority of payments were well below R3 million.
“The medical waste removal business is notorious for tender corruption and collusion, poor segregation of medical waste and general waste, and gross episodes of infectious waste and needlestick dumping, especially in the Free Sate,” James said.
“By getting to the bottom of the finances as a first step, and as a second step investigating the weighing and billing system used by provinces such as Limpopo, the AG would contribute greatly to cleaning up an awful bloody business.
“The DA will continue to pursue the issue until public confidence in the biosafety of our healthcare institutions is secured,” James said