State. Cureva, as Mediosa was known before it changed its name,
signed a memorandum of understanding with the Free State
Department of Health in 2015. The two parties then signed a contract
in early 2016 for the provision of primary healthcare services in rural
areas at a cost of R 954 per patient, the same rate Mediosa later offered
North West. Documents in the #GuptaLeaks reveal that
Cureva/Mediosa would forward R 650 of each per patient payment to
what appeared to be Gupta front companies in Dubai. By March 2018 ,
the Free State health department had splurged R 25 million on the
Gupta-linked firm’s services.^18
A source from the Free State Department of Health provided shocking
details on how Mediosa ripped off taxpayers. This government
healthcare worker was based in the eastern Free State’s Maluti-a-
Phofung local municipality, one of the early pilot sites for the mobile
units. ‘Mediosa’s staff would come into our hospital and take pills,
other medicines and basic consumables like bandages,’ he told me.
In other words, the company’s mobile clinics were leeching off
government facilities in the areas it was servicing. This would partly
explain how Mediosa could afford to ship the bulk of its revenues to
Gupta-linked companies abroad.
More terrifying, the Free State and North West were just the starting
points for the scheme. Another document from the #GuptaLeaks shows
that Mediosa intended rolling out its services in nearly all of South
Africa’s nine provinces. By doing so, the firm projected that it would
rake in revenues of about R 1 billion a year. But the national roll-out of
the Mediosa scheme was seemingly halted by the changing political
landscape and the concurrent demise of the Gupta family’s business
empire in South Africa.
nora
(Nora)
#1