MBABANE:SwaziPharm Director Kareem Ashraff has, once again, participated in the Ministry of Health tendering process and this time, he allegedly wants to use RGCO(Pty) Ltd to supply drugs in public hospitals and subsequently loot billions of public funds while emaSwati die in public hospitals.
The influential, powerful and politically connected businessman was previously implicated in the alleged looting of billions of public funds within the Ministry of Health resulting to the shortage of drugs in public hospitals, he allegedly colluded with senior Government officials to manipulate the procurement process.
On Wednesday, representatives of companies who tendered for the supply of drugs were shocked to see the tendering process being openly manipulated in favour of RGCO(Pty) Ltd.
Companies who were represented during the tendering process include MS Medical, Top EMS, National General Supplier, Avoma, Pharm Industry, ASD, UPD, Mediplus, Pharm-Pharm and Artemis among others.
It is alleged that, the Tender Board openly violated Article 15 of the tender rules that read;
“The name of each Tenderer and total amount of it’s Tender will be read aloud and the Tender Form and price schedules shall be signed by the Tender Opening Committee”.
But representatives of the above mentioned companies were shocked to see the process being conducted secretly with RGCO(Pty) Ltd given a preferential treatment and upon further investigations, it was discovered that the company is allegedly linked to Kareem Ashraff and one David Melvin.
Both Ashraff and Dave Melvin who are alleged owners of SwaziPharm were implicated in the alleged looting of billions of public funds as per the Funduzi Forensic Services report commissioned by the Ministry of Finance through the Office of the Auditor General(AG).
It has been disclosed that, after realizing that SwaziPharm was on the spotlight for alleged corruption, Ashraff allegedly changed and tendered with RGCO(Pty) Ltd.
Reached for comments by this Swaziland News on Saturday evening, Johannes Manikela, the Business Federation of Eswatini(BFE) Head of Retail confirmed that, tendering processes are being manipulated not only within the Ministry of Health but even in other Government Departments to deny companies owned by emaSwati tenders.
“What happened during the Ministry of Health supply of drugs tender this week was very wrong and, we don’t understand why companies owned by emaSwati are sidelined. That tender was supposed to be transparent but the tender prices were a top secret. The Ministry of Health supply of drugs tender is worth billions and must be awarded to different companies so that hospitals can have sufficient drugs and more jobs be created,”he said.
SwaziPharm Director Kareem Ashraff declined to comment about the matter.
But a Director of one of the companies who tendered said, the Tender Board members were very hostile such that, they refused to reveal the prices.
“We were shocked to witness corruption in action,” said one of the Directors.
Mduduzi Matsebula, the Minister of Health declined to comment about the alleged corruption within the Ministry of Health and, “it remains unclear if the Health Minister is not involved in the ongoing corruption”.
Eswatini has been struggling with a health crisis amid shortage of drugs in public hospitals for sometime now, the crisis was triggered by rampant corruption in the public administration.
On another note, SwaziPharm Director Kareem Ashraff has proven to be too powerful such that, despite the reported corruption confirmed even by forensic investigations and the Parliament Public Accounts Committee(PAC), “he continues to tender for the supply of drugs, hundreds of emaSwati have died since the health crisis erupted”.
Swazipharm Kareem Ashraff.