Investigators call for arrest over South Africa’s $10 million COVID-19 fund fraud

South African investigators on Wednesday called for a former health minister to be punished and a senior official to face criminal charges over a $10 million COVID fund scandal.

The damning report from the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) said former health minister Zweli Mkhize oversaw contracts through Digital Vibes, a front company run by his former spokeswoman and personal assistant.

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Using money meant to educate the public about how to stay safe during the pandemic, his son Dedani Mkhize bought a Land Cruiser and withdrew “significant amounts of cash”, the report said.

The SIU, an independent law enforcement agency with similar powers to the FBI, said the health ministry’s former director general Anton Pillay should be criminally charged with financial misconduct.

The current director general Sandile Buthelezi was suspended over the weekend.

Investigators also urged President Cyril Ramaphosa to take “executive action” against the former minister Mkhize, who resigned in August, as well as six other officials. The agency said it would issue more detailed recommendations about these measures later.

The SIU report did not delve into details of how the money was spent. Local media have reported that one Digital Vibes official took her family on a months-long trip to Turkey during South Africa’s second coronavirus wave.

Other reports have highlighted spending sprees on luxury goods.

One woman who on paper supposedly ran Digital Vibes actually worked at a gas station, while other money went to a beauty salon run by Mkhize’s daughter-in-law, according to the Daily Maverick newspaper.

The SIU has already taken steps to recover some of the funds, which had been earmarked for public awareness and media campaigns.

While this case is among many COVID-related graft investigations, the revelations have alarmed the public as Mkhize and Pillay were both seen as effective civil servants in a country marred with graft.

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