Former health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize has called on the Special Investigation Unit to make amendments to the Digital Vibes report, following its admission that it did not have the Cabinet documents it had relied on to make the adverse findings against him.
FORMER health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize has called on the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) to make amendments to the Digital Vibes report, following its admission that it did not have the Cabinet documents it had relied on to make the adverse findings against him.
The SIU finally responded in writing to Mkhize’s legal team’s numerous letters requesting the document of a Cabinet meeting on which it had based its findings against him. The unit said it did not have the document.
Mkhize said that the SIU’s report, released in June last year, stated that he had violated the Constitution by allowing the Department of Health to appoint Digital Vibes even though the Cabinet had directed that the Government Communication and Information System be appointed.
He said that despite his detailed submission to the SIU, disputing the report and requesting it to consider his representation before releasing the report to the public, it went ahead and published it without taking his submission into consideration.
Mkhize has since requested that the SIU provide him with the Cabinet meeting document as proof. He said the unit had been ducking and diving his request.
In the unit’s response, which came to Mkhize’s legal team via State attorneys and which the DFA’s sister publication the Daily News has seen, it said: “We reiterate that the documents referred to in paragraph 7 of your letter either does not exist or are not in the SIU’s possession.”
That prompted Mkhize to call for the report to be amended so that his name could be cleared. He said the SIU had no evidence against him.
He said he had always suspected that the SIU had predetermined findings against him, with the intention to tarnish his name.
The SIU’s response could boost his campaign to become ANC president at the party’s upcoming elective conference. The findings against him had forced him to resign as minister.
The report found that the contract was irregularly awarded to the company owned by his close associates. It also found that Mkhize’s son, Dedani, benefited as there were payments made to him by the company or its directors.
Mkhize said his son had explained that the money he had received had nothing to do with the Digital Vibes tender.
The former minister was also cleared by the Parliament’s ethics committee which found that his son’s benefits should not be construed as the minister’s benefits from the tender since his son was not a minor.
Nevertheless, Mkhize said his son has paid back the money to the SIU, pending the court’s determination whether it had anything to do with the contract.
SIU spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago said the unit had responded to Mkhize’s letters and would not comment further as the matter was in court.
