• The KwaZulu-Natal social development department has paid more than R14 million in salaries, bonuses and leave days to suspended employees who are at home after being implicated in a blanket tender deal. 
• The department will soon launch disciplinary hearings against three senior managers.  
• The government employees were paid more than R800 000 in bonuses while they were at home. 

R14,6 million. That's how much the KwaZulu-Natal social development department paid in salaries and bonuses for suspended employees at home after being implicated in irregularities related to a dodgy Covid-19 blanket deal.

Twelve officials are facing disciplinary processes on charges of misconduct, while the department prepares to subject three senior managers to hearings from 19 June to 23 July. 

The suspended civil servants bagged R816 966 in bonuses while at home. One of them, a senior manager who ended up resigning, was paid R40 420 for leave days. 

The managers were suspended in the wake of irregularities in a R4.9 million tender involving blankets.

This was revealed in a parliamentary reply by Social Development MEC Nonhlanhla Khoza to the DA spokesperson on social development, MPL Mmabatho Tembe.

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The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has investigated and requested that the department's contract be set aside due to regularities. The SIU had instituted civil proceedings in the Special Tribunal to review and set aside the contract allegedly irregularly awarded to Rosette Investments to supply 12 000 blankets in a contract worth R4 899 000 at the peak of Covid-19, as the government tried to cushion the poor against the cold. 

According to reports, this contract was one of four awarded by the social development department to supply 48 000 blankets at a cost of over R18 million as part of the Covid-19 relief. 

In her reply, Khoza said: 

"Recoveries from other companies have not been finalised by the courts. No recoveries were recommended against the officials." 

Khoza said criminal cases were opened against officials at the Pietermaritzburg police station, but later dropped as the National Prosecuting Authority declined to prosecute.

"The department is doing everything within its powers to expedite the finalisation of the misconduct hearings. Twelve officials were recommended to be charged with misconduct," Khoza said, adding that three seniors managers would face disciplinary hearings soon.

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Tembe said the DA viewed the R14.6 million payment in salaries as "a grave injustice".

"The DA has always maintained that officials implicated in this saga should have been suspended without pay. We have also stated that they should be criminally charged given that they allegedly stole from the poor," Tembe said. 

"The KwaZulu-Natal social development is already struggling on every front, with inadequate funding to deal with the vast number of social ills plaguing our province."

She said the money could have been used, among other things, to establish more shelters for survivors of gender-based violence as the scourge remains at an all-time high in the province; redirected to several NGOs facing closure and struggling to pay utility bills; and provided more victim-friendly rooms in police stations.

"It is clear that this ANC-run government cannot even fix the basics. Voters need to remember this when they go to the polls in 2024," Tembe added.