What is the truth about the renovations at the Letaba Hospital of the psychiatric ward that was gutted by a fire eighteen months ago?

This has become the one million dollar question. The male psychiatric ward was left severely damaged when it caught fire on 29 September 2014. In a press statement issued by the health department after the fire, “a quick programme of action to fix the hospital in a short space of time” was mentioned.
The damage was then estimated to be R4 million. However, a number of obvious untruths about the situation were presented by officials since the incident in 2014.

First lie: In January we followed up on the progress with the restoration, with the department of health. The former spokesperson of the department, Mr Marks Lesufi, then told us that the male psychiatric ward had been fixed and the psychiatric patients were back in their ward. He refuted allegations of general patients being mixed with psychiatric patients.

Second lie: Last month the department of health’s spokesperson, Mr Derrick Kganyago, said “the new psychiatric ward will be handed over in two months time”, and “during the renovation at least three contractors which were hired to do the job were terminated due to poor performance”. He added that the latest contractor was only appointed to do the work in December 2015.

We published this exclusive report on the front page of the Bulletin of 19 February. Since we did not feel comfortable with some of the answers we got, we decided to continue with further investigations.
Now we have discovered the following:
On 24 October 2014 the department of public works advertised a tender for “renovation and alterations of the existing psychiatric ward and administration, various external work and covered parking at Letaba Hospital”.

According to the Limpopo Provincial Tender Bulletin dated 08 May 2015 the R24 million tender bid was awarded to Nkomaba and Bila JV.

When we paid another visit to Letaba Hospital earlier this week, Nkomaba and Bila JV was indeed found to be the main contractor on the site. A sub-contractor hired by Nkomaba and Bila JV resumed work last week and workers were busy working on the roof of the psychiatric ward (Ward 7). One of the workers said “the job has to be finished as soon as possible”.

The question thus arises: Who were the so-called other “three contractors who had to be fired due to poor performance”?

The questions remain, though: Why did the spokespersons for the department of health lie about the restoration of Ward 7, and why is there confusion and/or a cover-up about the renovations in progress at a regional hospital that is of critical importance to the Mopani region?

The existing Ward 7 which is being renovated has the capacity to accommodate both male and female psychiatric patients in separate sections.