Former Eastern Cape health department head Dr Thobile Mbengashe has been cleared of dishonesty and favouring Qonce motorcycle supplier Fabkomp in the controversial R10.14m tender for 100 mobile clinics, which was stopped by the Special Tribunal.
Former Eastern Cape health superintendent-general Dr Thobile Mbengashe has come out slugging in premier Oscar Mabuyane’s disciplinary inquiry against him, saying he never initiated the fraught tender to procure “scooter ambulances and clinics”, which underpins the hearing. Mbengashe’s counsel, advocate Fabian Pretorius, bluntly told the Office of the Premier inquiry, headed by advocate Peter Kroon SC, that the wrong evidence was placed before the Special Tribunal judge who reviewed and stoppe.
The Special Investigating Unit promotes itself as “the state’s preferred and trusted forensic investigation and litigation agency”. But the unit’s officials stand accused of making the elementary mistake of misreading a tender adjudication document in its probe of the Eastern Cape health department’s tender to procure 100 motorcycles to service rural clinics.