Ayanda Matinise, a former courier for the Eastern Cape department of health, was given a ten-year prison term for fraud with a PPE procurement.
On Tuesday, Matinise appeared before the Mthatha Specialized Commercial Crimes Court.
The 37-year-old unlawfully awarded a PPE contract when the government declared a national state of emergency at the height of the Covid-19 outbreak in 2020 by taking advantage of his closeness to the office of the then-health MEC Sindiswa Gomba.
According to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), Matinise allegedly wrote, signed, and sent a forged letter to Falaz Protection Services in September 2020 under the guise that the department had agreed to purchase 700 000 non-sterile, powder-free examination KN 95 surgical masks made of nitrile.
Falaz filed a quote and a statement of interest to Matinise along with a quotation valued at R23.7 million, according to NPA spokeswoman Luxolo Tyali.
Tyali said, “Falaz delivered a consignment of PPEs to the department’s headquarters at O.R. Tambo district shops in Mthatha under the permission of such supply and delivery via the fake commitment letter.
“It became clear that the authorities in charge of payment and commitment letter issuance at the department had no awareness of the commitment letter when a director at Falaz sought payment for services done and even paid Matinise R3,000 to accelerate the payment.
“The firm chose to pick up the cargo, but a significant portion of it was gone, including 130 000 KN 95 masks and 70 000 surgical masks worth R2.6 million.
The Special Investigative Unit and the Hawks conducted investigations that resulted in Matinise’s detention, according to Tyali.
Matinise entered a not guilty plea and made an effort to link the whistle-blower authorities to widespread wrongdoing.
The prosecution requested the minimum mandatory sentence of 15 years for fraud involving more than R500 000, and the court rejected his defense.
The court discovered, nonetheless, that there were compelling and extraordinary circumstances that permitted a departure.
»PPE fraud gets health department messenger 10 years jail term«