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Illustrative image | Health Minister Zweli Mkhize, Tahera Mather (left), Naadhira Mitha (black top, glasses) on March 26, 2019 (Photo: Facebook) | Minister of Health, Zweli Mkhize. (Photo: Gallo Images / Darren Stewart) | (Photo: Adobe Stock)
The Health Department has suspended a questionable Covid-19 communications contract while a forensic investigator investigates it. The SIU is also investigating the contract.
The Department of Health (DoH) has suspended the services of Digital Vibes, an obscure communications company linked to two close associates of the Minister of Health, Dr. Zweli Mkhize.
This comes after Daily Maverick recently reported that Digital Vibes obtained emergency procurement orders from the department for Covid-19 awareness campaigns valued at R82 million.
Zweli Mkhize’s ‘Family Friend’ and Former Private Secretary Pocketing Covid-19 Cash Through R82m Health Department Contracts
We reveal that Tahera Mather, 55, Mkhize’s longtime personal spokesperson, and Naadhira Mitha, 30, his former personal assistant, benefited from the Digital Vibes DoH contract by working for the company as paid consultants.
The company was first tied up by the department in late 2019 to provide communications services for the deployment of the National Health Insurance (NHI), but its services were extended in March 2020 to include Covid-19.
This week marks one year since the pandemic reached South Africa.
Unlike some provincial health departments, the national department has so far been spared major scandals related to its emergency procurement.
The Digital Vibes thing could change all that.
On Friday, Health Department spokesman Popo Maja confirmed that the department had suspended the Digital Vibes contract.
He said this was done due to an ongoing investigation by a department-appointed forensic investigator.
The Special Investigation Unit (SIU) is also investigating the contract.
“Our instructions are that the contract was not terminated but rather suspended to facilitate and enable the SIU investigation,” said Digital Vibes Senior Director Radha Hariram through her attorney.
Company records feature Hariram as the head of Digital Vibes. When the company passed resolutions, for example, Hariram signed the paperwork. But several factors suggest that she was not actually in charge of the Digital Vibes business. Rather, it appears that Mkhize’s associates, Mather and Mitha, pulled the strings.
Scorpio has established that Hariram worked at a fuel station in his hometown of Stanger in KwaZulu-Natal, while Mather and Mitha supervised the Health Department’s communications work from an office in Johannesburg.
Hariram and Mather, who are also from Stanger, have known each other for many years, according to Hariram’s lawyer.
Much of our focus thus far has been on Mather, who has practically clung to Mkhize as his communications assistant since his days as ANC General Treasurer. She played a key role during their failed #Unity campaign to win the party’s highest position at the ANC Nasrec conference in 2017.
Scorpio can now reveal that Mitha, who is Mather’s niece, worked in Mkhize’s office at the Health Department until the time she moved to Digital Vibes as a consultant.
This happened in late March 2020, when Digital Vibes began shifting its focus from NHI to Covid-19.
“Naadhira Mitha worked as the minister’s personal assistant,” the DoH confirmed.
“He then resigned after noticing that the Ministry’s work was affecting his personal life due to extensive travel. She also wanted to seek better job opportunities that would allow her to grow as a BCom Accounting graduate while living in the same city with her family, ”the department added.
This conforms to a timeline of events reported by various sources and related information.
“Naadhira” [Mitha] joined Digital Vibes towards the end of March or beginning of April, ”said a person with direct knowledge of the company’s DoH contract.
In other words, Mitha reportedly left her position as Mkhize’s personal assistant to undertake a lucrative consulting job with a company that had just landed a large communications deal with her former boss’s department.
Mitha has so far shown little interest in discussing the matter.
He promised to comment before our first story was published, but never did. Since then, he has been ignoring our messages and does not respond to our phone calls.
From the looks of it, Mather has also gone to the ground.
Mkhize Departments
When the name Digital Vibes first caught our attention in the National Treasury (NT) Covid-19 emergency spending records, we quickly saw some red flags.
The company was registered at Hariram’s Stanger address. And we couldn’t find much of a track record to support its ability to fulfill large communications projects.
The government bidding bulletins reflected only a previous contract awarded to Digital Vibes prior to the agreement with the Department of Health, leading us to another red flag.
In 2018, the company obtained a communications contract of R3.9 million from the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Areas (Cogta).
At the time, Mkhize turned out to be the minister in charge of Cogta, his first post in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s cabinet after Nasrec.
In 2019, after Mkhize moved to the Health Department, Digital Vibes won the NHI communications contract.
So it seemed as if Digital Vibes had been following Mkhize from department to department.
Around the time Digital Vibes secured the deal with Cogta, Mather worked as a personal spokesperson for Mkhize.
But he had two jobs.
We found content on their social media pages that appeared to be linked to Cogta’s communications contract.
Before going off the radar, Mather admitted to Scorpio that she had worked as a consultant to Digital Vibes for the Cogta project, just as she had after Digital Vibes got the deal with DoH.
So not only does it appear that Digital Vibes followed Mkhize wherever he went, but his personal spokesperson benefited from consulting work directly tied to contracts from two separate departments under Mkhize’s leadership.
Whether this was pure coincidence remains to be seen.
The Director General of the Department of Health, Dr. Sandile Buthelezi, has flatly denied that Mkhize influenced the 2019 contract.
“The minister of any government department is not involved in any procurement process. That is the full prerogative of the Acting Accounting Officer in that department under the PFMA. [Public Finance Management Act]Buthelezi told 702’s Clement Manyathela after our first show.
Mather and Mitha may have left the scene, but Hariram has been answering our inquiries through his attorney.
Some of your answers are quite interesting. We wanted to know how a company with no apparent footprint in the communications space managed to land such lucrative government deals.
“Many small black businesses don’t have websites, they operate from a home office, and although they are fairly ‘new’, they have government tenders. Research this, ”she replied.
We pointed out that some of the key people in the Department of Health involved in the NHI and Covid-19 communications projects had not heard of her. They had only met and worked with Mather and Mitha.
Hariram was unaffected by this.
“Is it a law or rule that a director of a company must work or have personal interactions with their clients or clients? Probably most of the employees of the Checkers and Pep stores do not know who Christo Wiese is or what he looks like. “
But how did Hariram manage to juggle her responsibilities as an employee at Stanger’s gas station with her duties as head of Digital Vibes?
“Radha was not required full time for this contract. She had consultants to [do] the work. Do not forget that Radha is a director and had no obligation to do any work (as an employee) for Digital Vibes, ”said her lawyer in reference to the Cogta 2018 contract.
Finally, we wanted to know if Hariram really had no experience in the communications business.
“Is it also necessary for a director of a company to have a personal background regarding the business that the company does? This is ridiculous at best, ”Pillay said.
Ridiculous, actually. DM168
