Tembisa Hospital: Repurposed for looting

From what has been revealed in the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) interim report released on 29 September 2025, staff and management at both the Tembisa Hospital and Gauteng Department of Health were not in the business of running a hospital. They were in the business of running syndicates, racketeering, money laundering and stealing vast amounts of funds that were meant for service delivery.

The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) found nine syndicates operating out of Tembisa Hospital, who were collectively behind the looting of at least R2.043 billion over a few years, from a hospital with an annual budget of only R1.6 billion at the time.

Instead of acting diligently and exercising their oversight duties, the Gauteng Department of Health did nothing to stop the looting, and went as far as enabling the looters in doing so.  

What did the Gauteng MEC for Health do? What did the Gauteng Premier do? From the perspective of civil society, it appears that they chose to look away.

This is what our government has come to: an entire hospital can be captured, repurposed for looting by “medical supplies” from “service providers” who are not registered to sell them, and be used to extract R2 billion in just a few years.

Sadly, it is the residents of Tembisa township that have had to suck it up and get stuck with appalling, life threatening conduct that flows from the excessive corruption that has ensued.

This is what happens when national government, provincial government and far too many local governments ignore all complaints of state capture and endemic corruption. This is what happens when governments at all levels routinely ignore complaints about poor service delivery.

The question we must ask is how many patients have died or become incapacitated due to lack of services, lack of equipmentor hospital staff indifference, as a result of these stolen funds?

When one reads the SIU report, you get a sense of the brazenness and sheer and deliberate frenzy of theft that took place. As quoted on page 29 of the report, “These officials selfishly abused their positions within every step of the Tembisa Hospital procurement chain to the benefit of the fraudulently appointed service providers and to ultimately enrich themselves”.

The looters chose Tembisa Hospital, which had a sizable budget, but was far enough from provincial and national offices, and was clearly devoid of meaningful management oversight. Over the looting years between 2018 and 2021, the spending on “goods and services” rocketed from 33% of the hospital’s budget to 53%, then 69%, then 75%.

Gauteng has 37 state-funded hospitals and one wonder how many others are being brazenly looted in a similar manner?

The SIU has diligently searched through mountains of paperwork containing numerous fake invoices and fake company details, and have identified nine syndicates, linked to 207 service providers who used 4 501 purchase orders to extract money from Tembisa, using at least 13 officials in the hospital and Gauteng Department of Health.

The SIU have also prepared 116 disciplinary referrals against 13 officials and sent 108 referrals to the Gauteng Department of Health. We don’t trust that department, and want those referrals taken over by an independent third party, and all those implicated staff suspended immediately.

What we at OUTA believe, is that more funds are required to capacitate the SIU, and for this investigation in particular, such that we can ensure the perpetrators of these crimes are brought to book and held accountable for their misdeeds.

We would also like to see the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) prioritise the prosecutions the SIU has already forwarded, plus any others to come, and we would like to see real, determined efforts to prosecute everyone.

Furthermore, we believe it is imperative that implicated staff who have resigned to avoid disciplinary action, must be pursued by the SIU and NPA, and prosecuted.

Every effort should be made to seize assets from those implicated to recover as much looted funds as possible.

In addition, we believe it is imperative that a full audit is conducted of all 37 Gauteng hospitals, to look for similar conduct that could very well have pervaded these entities, due to the fact that the Provincial Government department of Heath was so relaxed in their oversight duties and responsibilities.

It is clear to us that more needs to be done in implementing changes to the law, when it comes to the protection of whistleblowers and the investigators who challenge such organised, heartless corruption.

Only one woman stood up to the Tembisa looters: Babita Deokaran and she paid the ultimate price for her moral courage.

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