An obscure company that won a R428-million tender to bring life-saving healthcare equipment to public hospitals may have done so on the back of allegedly fraudulent documents.
A joint Daily Maverick and amaBhungane investigation has identified discrepancies in the regulatory certificate used by Bulkeng, the little-known company that somehow won the lion’s share of the project’s spend. The company also seemingly used an address it didn’t occupy when it submitted its bid, while an allegedly fraudulent witness signature found its way onto one of its bid documents.
The Bulkeng saga took a bizarre twist last week, when an IOL journalist claimed on social media that the company’s sole director, Nathi Ndlovu, was “allegedly found dead”. The post came only three days after Daily Maverick and amaBhungane met with Ndlovu and his lawyers in Johannesburg. We have not yet been able to confirm any details regarding Ndlovu’s purported demise.
One of Ndlovu’s lawyers said they had been in contact with their client’s family. He couldn’t confirm whether the businessman had indeed passed away. Asked if his firm would respond to the issues raised in this article, the attorney said they no longer held a brief for Ndlovu.
Our focus, for the time being, remains on the tender process that preceded this dramatic turn of events.
Hawks spokesperson, Colonel Katlego Mogale, has confirmed that the matter is under investigation but added, “the team is not revealing too much information so as not to jeopardise the case”.
Daily Maverick previously reported that the Independent Development Trust (IDT), acting as an implementing agent for the Department of Health (DoH), appointed Bulkeng and other private contractors to install oxygen plants at fifty-five hospitals across South Africa. The project’s budget, initially set at roughly R250-million, has ballooned to R836-million.
Bulkeng, seemingly a “ghost company” with no online presence, no offices and a very elusive director, secured the largest portion of the oxygen plants roll-out.
We have examined Bulkeng’s bid submission and supporting documents and have found several red flags, one of which stems from the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) certificate Bulkeng included in its application.
“Improper” use of SAHPRA licence
Bulkeng is not registered with SAHPRA and seemingly used the certificate of another company without its knowledge.
The IDT has claimed that Bulkeng was in a joint venture partnership with an entity named “Brutas Atlas Copco Industrials South Africa”. This entity supposedly held the SAHPRA certificate Bulkeng would have needed for its bid.
No such company, however, has ever been registered in South Africa. We’ve since established that the IDT had somehow melded together the names of two separate companies.
The facts surrounding the SAHPRA license appear to be as follows:
Ndlovu knew full well that his company, Bulkeng, did not have the required license or certificate. He therefore approached one Christo Bruwer, the owner of a local company named Brutes Air Solutions.
Come July 2023, Ndlovu and Bruwer must have had some sort of deal in place, given that they attended a tender briefing session together on the seventh of that month. This briefing took place at the IDT’s offices in Pretoria, where Ndlovu and Bruwer were joined by one of Bruwer’s colleagues from Brutes Air, according to a signed attendance register.
Like Bulkeng, Brutes Air Solutions was not registered with SAHPRA, so it couldn’t lawfully distribute medical equipment.
This is where the local subsidiary of Atlas Copco, a multinational engineering and manufacturing group, enters the picture.
Brutes Air Solutions is a distributor for Atlas Copco in South Africa, and the latter does have a valid SAHPRA certificate held in the name of Atlas Copco Industrial South Africa. This was the very certificate Bulkeng had included in its bid.
The problem, however, is that Atlas Copco never gave anyone permission to use their license.
“Atlas Copco was not a party to the tender process and does not know what documents the tendering parties were requested to provide. We are looking into whether there was any improper use of our license by any party in this instance,” stated Marilyn Govender, vice president for the Atlas Copco Group in sub-Saharan Africa.
We later asked Govender whether their investigation had yielded any answers. We wanted to know whether Atlas Copco would take action against Ndlovu or Bruwer should they find that the Atlas license had indeed been misappropriated.
“We decline to comment on this matter for the time being,” responded Govender.
We also asked Bruwer what role he played in sourcing Atlas Copco’s SAHPRA certificate.
“Only after our quote was accepted was there a request from [the] IDT through Bulkeng on if the equipment/product was Sahpra certified, which it is, and we confirmed same as the distributor of Atlas Copco,” Bruwer wrote in an email.
But what of Govender’s assertion that Atlas Copco wasn’t aware that anyone had used their license? Wouldn’t this potentially amount to tender fraud?
“We cannot comment on your averments as to what Atlas Copco told you but again we confirm that we are a distributor of Atlas Copco and we are in constant discussions with Atlas Copco on all matters as their distributor and they have full knowledge on what we do, and what you read between the lines are denied and unsupported,” stated Bruwer.
Contrary to what the IDT has stated, Bruwer denies that Brutes Air Solutions was in a formal joint venture with Bulkeng.
“We confirm that Bulkeng is a customer and only a customer [and] like any other customer of Brutes we were requested to quote on the project for Bulkeng, which we did, and which was accepted and approved. We are not and never were in a JV with Bulkeng,” Bruwer told us.
The attendance register for last year’s tender briefing, however, points to a much closer relationship between Bulkeng and Brutes Air. Bruwer and his colleague, one “A. Koekemoer”, both signed the document as supposed representatives of Bulkeng. They didn’t write their own company’s email address in the relevant box either, instead opting to include one for Bulkeng.
Asked about the briefing session, Bruwer stated: “We attended the meeting as the technical support on our accepted quote for Bulkeng and all parties were and are fully aware who we are and the roll that we play. We were there for various technical presentations and everything was done with and under Brutes’ logo and we were and always are clothed with Brutes’ brandings.”
Bruwer said he did not know anything about Ndlovu’s purported death. “We have seen news of the unfortunate passing of Mr. Ndlovu, but we have no details relating thereto,” he noted.
The IDT and the health department both failed to respond to our detailed queries.
“The IDT and Health will be issuing a media statement regarding the PSA in due course,” said IDT spokesperson Phasha Makgolane.
When no such statement was forthcoming, we followed up with Foster Mohale, spokesperson for the DoH.
“We haven’t made a decision on whether to proceed with statement or another approaches [sic]”, Mohale said in a text message.
Addressing concerns
Further red flags stem from the business address Bulkeng referenced in its bid documents and in other records related to the tender.
The documents include an offer letter to the IDT for the oxygen roll-out. This document lists Bulkeng’s address as a commercial building on Rivonia Boulevard in Johannesburg.
We visited the address and found a block named Edenburg Terraces that is now largely occupied by a private school.
On Bulkeng’s tender documents, Ndlovu claimed that his company had been located in “Block A”. In the signed offer letter, Ndlovu stated that Bulkeng had occupied unit “A2-005”. while other Bulkeng tender documents reference unit “C2-003”.
These unit numbers were, by all accounts, a thumb suck. “One thing I can say for certain, Edenburg Terraces never had offices with the unit numbers he is claiming,” the property owner said.
In fact, the owner said that Bulkeng had never leased offices at Edenburg Terraces.
However, it seems likely that Ndlovu did at one point work from the building. The facilities manager recognised Ndlovu’s name and suggested that he may have been subletting from another tenant.
In any event, Ndlovu had almost certainly vacated the building by the time he signed the tender documents.
The Sparks School, which now occupies the entirety of Block A, opened its doors to primary school learners in January 2022. The high school opened in January 2023. Bulkeng’s offer letter, meanwhile, was signed in July 2023.
We sought clarity from Ndlovu regarding Bulkeng’s business premises when we met him at his attorneys’ offices. He refused to confirm where Bulkeng’s current offices were located, instead undertaking to “respond in writing”.
“Not my signature”
The signed offer letter yielded another red flag.
The document was supposedly witnessed by one Audrey Reddy. We managed to track down a businessperson who goes by that name. As it so happens, Audrey Reddy is a supplier of office equipment to the IDT.
We showed her Bulkeng’s offer letter. “Fraud”, was her response. She confirmed that the witness signature did not belong to her.
We pressed Ndlovu for details surrounding the signature. Could he perhaps recall who exactly Audrey Reddy was? Could he tell us where he was when she witnessed his company’s offer letter, and could he provide us with her contact details?
Ndlovu refused to answer our questions, again vowing that he would respond in writing.
“Allegedly dead”
Three days after our meeting with Ndlovu and his lawyers, IOL journalist Thabo Makwakwa claimed in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that Ndlovu had died.
The post has since gained significant traction, but we haven’t managed to confirm Ndlovu’s death, albeit hardly for lack of trying.
We visited several police stations and mortuaries in Gauteng and contacted some of his family members and business associates, all in vain.
We also asked the police whether they knew anything.
At the time of writing, SAPS spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel Mavela Masondo could not confirm whether Ndlovu had indeed died.
Meanwhile, sources familiar with the oxygen plants initiative said they weren’t sure how the project would proceed.
As things stand, Bulkeng’s involvement in the roll-out seems to be up in the air.
.
