Three years after the assassination of Gauteng financial accounting officer Babita Deokaran, Special Investigating Unit (SIU) boss Andy Mothibi said her efforts to uncover corrupt activities were not in vain and that investigations are at an advanced stage. At 8.24am on 23 August 2021, hitmen pumped 12 bullets into the 53-year-old Gauteng health acting chief financial officer outside her complex in the south of Johannesburg shortly after dropping her child at school.
“Efforts not in vain” Deokaran had flagged corruption in the department’s procurement of Covid personal protective equipment (PPE) to the tune of R332 million. Mothibi told 702 , Deokaran’s evidence has assisted the SIU’s investigation. He said the SIU had broadened the scope of its Tembisa Hospital graft probe, set in motion by Deokaran, to a mammoth 5 500 transactions worth as much as R3 billion.
This represents a mammoth 250% escalation from the R850 million in “possibly fraudulent transactions” she flagged and reported three weeks before her murder, News24 reported. “Her efforts were not in vain. We have now uncovered that her evidence assisted us to come up with identification of instances where the officials were circumventing procurement and abusing quotation systems.
“The investigating team gave me an update about 5 314 purchase orders that were identified relating to more than 170 service providers. So what are we going to do? We are going to immediately go to the special tribunal and g.