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Buthelezi said he sent a quote for R87m.
“Then I get an engagement letter [of] R873m. So I look at this, I’m not impressed anymore.
“The number is staggering and business-friendly. But I couldn’t understand the numbers because we were talking about a few hundred thousand to a million units.
“So I called [Lehloenya] to say, ‘What happened to my quote because this letter says you’ve accepted my quote but the amount I see here doesn’t speak to you? He asked for 200,000 masks, instead of two million.
“The number of masks was reduced and [the quantities of] disinfectants and disinfectants were inflated. “
In internal correspondence, Lehloenya blamed the chief director of supply chain management at the health department, Thandy Pino, who was suspended, for the mistake.
The department issued a new commitment letter to Buthelezi to purchase PPE worth R4.6m.
“The explanation was: ‘We are moving to a weekly commitment system. We are not going to order in bulk Mr. Buthelezi.
He said this was uncomfortable for him because he had already engaged with suppliers based on a quote of R87m.
“I was sued by a supplier … What cost me is the [department’s] commitment to buy me masks and they did not. “
