Mbabane: The Funduzi Director, Zakhele Dlamini, has broken silence and shared assassination attempts following the investigation on the medical drug-shortage, saying that a cartel and a local media organisation are behind a coordinated smear campaign to discredit him.
Dlamini said intentions to divert the destabilising of the medical supply which has plunged in a crisis is informed by a 380-page report detailing shocking findings of his investigations.
He has dominated headlines recently and Dlamini sees these ‘attacks against’ him a design to distract the public from being informed on why hospitals remain without essential drugs, why a supplier receiving E500 million per annum from government continuously fails, or chooses not, to deliver and how the same individual bankrolling attempts to destroy his credibility is using a financial muscle to bully anyone who challenges him.
Dlamini, speaking to Independent News, insists that he is not fazed and will “fight this fight until the bitter end.” He says emaSwati’s lives are being placed at risk while the true culprits are protected by the media.
Dlamini accuses the media of ignoring the findings of the 380-page report, which he says shows shocking supply failures. He put it to journalists that they are failing to interrogate how a single supplier could hold over 200 contracts to supply medical drugs to the government yet fail to meet full supply in 192 of those contracts.
He asks why the government is not reimbursed for the undelivered stock. Dlamini said media coverage has come on the attacking side against Funduzi instead of confronting the depth of corruption.
He dismissed the criticism that Funduzi was only three months registered locally when it was awarded the contract, arguing that some companies implicated in the drug scandal were even younger. He said more than five companies linked to one individual were less than a month old when they secured multimillion-emalangeni drug supply tenders.
He cited Cerium Scientific, owned by businesswoman Zinhle Matsebula and allegedly linked to Avapharm, which he said was only three weeks old when it received its contract.
The Funduzi report contains an annexure showing Matsebula asking suspended Chief Procurement Officer, Sincedile Dlamini, which documents to attach to her tender application. The annexure shows Dlamini taking Matsebula on what to include, how to apply, step by step. Another annexure, also, shows Sincedile Dlamini receiving a payment from Cerium Scientific after the contract was successfully secured. He questioned why these issues are not receiving the same scrutiny.
He argued that critics accusing him of lacking credibility because his company was three months old are the same individuals who benefited from contracts awarded to companies that were only three weeks old and with no pharmaceutical background, unlike his years of forensic investigation experience.
Explaining how Funduzi secured the tender, Dlamini said he bidded like any other bidder and got it fair and square. He said the Auditor General, Timothy Matsebula, told him the contract was awarded to him precisely because he was based outside Eswatini and therefore less susceptible to local influence. AG Matsebula reportedly expressed worry that awarding the tender to a local firm may compromise the investigation and increase risks.
Dlamini said he was shocked by what he uncovered. So far, he has some cabinet ministers’ support for exposing the “untouchable” figures. He says the Ministry of Health has been hogged since 2005 by a certain individual.
Previous investigations by large firms and commissions failed, he said, because the individual used his influence to derail them. For this, he has been receiving a pat in the back from some politicians who also fed him background.
Among these, he said, is a former Member of Parliament who once called him after seeing his photo in the newspaper and expressed shock that someone “so young” had managed to penetrate a network many feared. The legislator, according to Dlamini, has informed that the individual has more than five companies bidding for the same contracts but is failing to deliver.
Dlamini insists he will not back down. He says those targeting him are attempting to bury the truth and protect the architects of the country’s drug-supply crisis.
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