• In 2020, Veritas Digital scored a R1 billion tender to digitise Limpopo’s medical files.
• The DA says the company digitised files in only 64 of the 523 public healthcare facilities.
• The party wants Health MEC Dieketseng Mashego to be hauled before the health portfolio committee. 
• The anti-corruption watchdog Conty Lebepe Foundation has long suspected corruption in the Veritas Engineering tender procurement process.

THABO MONYELA

The Limpopo Department of Health is facing a backlash after spending R1 billion on a company that allegedly failed to perform and digitised less than 10% of the province’s patients’ files over five years—despite being paid R1 million daily. 

According to the Democratic Alliance (DA) in Limpopo, Johannesburg-based company Veritas Digital allegedly digitised files at only 64 of the 523 healthcare facilities since being awarded the five-year contract in 2020. 

Veritas Digital is a Veritas Engineering and Project Management Consultants (PTY) Ltd subsidiary.

The DA Limpopo’s health spokesperson, Lindy Wilson, said the Limpopo Department of Health intended to pump up an additional R250 million, which was already budgeted before the end of the 2024/25 financial year, even though Veritas Digital had underperformed. 

She added that further allocations will be determined after a review process in March 2025. 

This raises questions about whether taxpayers got value for their money in the contract, which sought to modernise medical records and reduce patient waiting periods in the province’s hospitals and clinics. It further fuelled speculation in Limpopo that Veritas Digital enjoyed political protection. 

Five years ago, the provincial health department awarded Veritas Digital a rate-based contract with uncapped expenditure, resulting in taxpayers spending a whopping R1 billion. 

According to the contract awarded during Limpopo Premier Phophi Ramathuba’s tenure as health MEC, the company was required to scan, archive, and off-site store all departmental records for sixty months. 

The rate-based nature of the deal meant the monthly costs would not be the same. They would derive from the number of processes in accordance with the agreed-upon contractual agreement. 

According to Veritas Digital’s appointment letter, seen by African Times, the company charged the department R1 per A4 copy and R20 for a 4A0 size copy, among other things. 

The DA has now called for Limpopo Health MEC Dieketseng Mashego to appear before the Limpopo Legislature’s health portfolio committee to further detail the “excessive expenditure” on the Veritas Digital contract.  

Wilson has labelled the contract as a noose around the neck of Limpopo’s health system and unacceptably excessive. 

“This expenditure on digitising files is unacceptably excessive, and at the current spending levels, it is likely that the department will need more billions to complete all 523 health facilities. During the review process the department should consider ways to make this process more affordable, so more resources are available for the core business of the department and to prevent the province’s ailing health system from collapsing,” Wilson said. 

Anti-corruption and maladministration watchdog Conty Lebepe Foundation said corruption was suspected when the Veritas Digital tender was awarded five years ago.  

The foundation said they wrote to the then-Limpopo Premier Stanley Mathabatha asking him to investigate the tender, but nothing came of it. 

“Although we don’t have evidence, we believe that there’s serious corruption in this and that prices might have been inflated,” spokesperson Conty Lebepe said by phone.

Limpopo Department of Health spokesperson Neil Shikwambana conceded that the Veritas Digital contract is excessive but said it is necessary. 

“Although it comes at a high cost, the department views this expenditure as a necessity. We have been for some time struggling with the storage of files and archives for all our facilities,” Shikwambana said.

He accused the DA of trying to scandalise the Veritas Digital tender.

When the contract first raised a stir, Shikwambana said the department disclosed in 2022 that it is a service-based contract, meaning that Veritas Digital gets paid according to the number of papers it processes monthly. 

He added that the company processes millions of papers per day at more than 80 cents per page. 

“The department awarded the tender to Veritas Digital after it was advertised on two occasions in 2020, with a clear scope of work to digitise patient files in order to ensure long-term accessibility of files from a centralised system and to curb the lawsuits that the department has been facing due to misplaced patient files,” Shikwambana added. 

He further maintained that there is nothing irregular about the tender, and that the health portfolio committee is more than welcome to conduct an oversight visit at the Veritas Engineering offices in Polokwane.

Veritas Engineering’s chief executive officer (CEO) Glenvin Latchmanan poured cold water on DA’s allegations that his company failed to perform despite pocketing R1 billion.

“Veritas does not have anything to hide. We welcome people to come in to assess how we operate. If the DA or anyone else has doubt that the project is in progress as per the level agreement, they are welcome to schedule a visit to our facilities and empower themselves with the value that we add to the department,” he said. 

 Latchmanan said his company has digitised approximately 75% of the province’s patient files, with around 70% coming from the 40 hospitals around Limpopo. 

He revealed that about 25% of these files are active files, awaiting the completion of the Central Health Information System (CHIS), which is currently in the pipeline for implementation by the department.

“The digitised patient files will then be migrated to the CHIS, which will enable patients to have access to their full patient history anywhere in the province.The cost of savings in repeat treatments and diagnostics for the department will be significant as the patient history will be known.”

“We have created a Cloud-based secure portal for the department employees to access the digitised patient files. This value added service enables the department to speedily access any of the patient files that have been digitised from any facility in the province,” Latchmanan said. 

African Times visited the company’s warehouse in Polokwane on Thursday, 6 March, and was met with employees performing various duties, including cleaning, packaging, and computer-related activities.

Files were packed in small boxes containing scanned inactive medical files.

Veritas said the files were from 40 provincial hospitals and all have been digitised.