Denosa to lay charges against companies implicated in SIU report
The Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (Denosa) will lay criminal charges against the companies implicated in the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) report into Covid-19 personal protective equipment (PPE) corruption.
The SIU, which released its report on PPE corruption on Friday, received 189 allegations of corruption.
The allegations reported to the SIU included the irregular procurement of PPE, hospital and quarantine sites, food parcels, ventilators, disinfecting equipment and motorized wheelchairs.
The SIU also found that some of the PPEs were substandard.
Denosa’s acting general-secretary Cassim Lekhoathi says the substandard material contributed to the deaths of healthcare workers.
“We believe the companies who have unduly benefitted by producing substandard material have contributed in one way or the other to the infection of most of our members and also some of them succumbing to the virus, that could have been prevented should they have done the correct thing.
“The blame can also be put on quality assurance on the part of government when they have dealing with people who are given contracts to produce this PPEs and are unqualified.”
He believes the names of all the implicated companies need to be made public.
“Our prayer is for these companies implicated in the report to be exposed for who they are. We are studying the report of the SIU very carefully and we are contacting our lawyers with the possibilities of approaching the police to lay criminal charges against those people and we are not excluding the possibility of taking a class action (suit).
“We believe they have wronged the public. Healthcare workers and their children have suffered, they don’t they breadwinners anymore.”
ALSO READ
