Macpherson calls for lifestyle audits into IDT bosses, gives update on delayed oxygen plants probe

6 Apr 2025

Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Dean Macpherson wants the Independent Development Trust’s new board to order lifestyle audits into the entity’s senior management. The ongoing investigation into the R836m oxygen plant debacle, meanwhile, has faced several headwinds, but should be concluded in May.

The Independent Development Trust’s (IDT) senior management should be subjected to lifestyle audits, Public Works and Enterprises Minister Dean Macpherson said in a media briefing on Sunday, 6 April.

The IDT, which reports to the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure (DPWI), has been in the glare of public scrutiny over alleged malfeasance in the awarding of contracts worth hundreds of millions of rands.

In October last year, Daily Maverick’s Scorpio first revealed alleged irregularities in an R836-million IDT project to procure and install oxygen plants at government hospitals across South Africa.

Read more: ‘Ghost company’ bags R428m oxygen plants tender for state hospitals

The IDT was acting as an implementing agent for the National Department of Health (NDoH), and the latter has since backed out of the contract following our revelations regarding the tender process. Our reporting largely focused on the appointment of Bulkeng, a “ghost company” that did not possess the necessary regulatory certification to work with medical equipment.

Speaking to a small gathering of journalists at Parliament’s Imbizo news room on Sunday, Macpherson provided an update on the probe that he had ordered into the oxygen plants contracts.

PwC, which has been tasked with investigating the tender, has faced several headwinds since it began its probe in late January, said Macpherson.

In addition to the ongoing PwC investigation, the minister now wants broad-ranging lifestyle audits to be conducted on the IDT’s top management, including the entity’s CEO, Tebogo Malaka.

“Today, I would also like to announce that I will be recommending that the [IDT] board authorise lifestyle audits across the senior personnel of the IDT,” stated Macpherson.

The IDT board has only recently again become quorate after it had been functioning for a number of months without the requisite number of board members.

Macpherson earlier this year reappointed several former board members who had left the IDT board during the tenure of former minister Sihle Zikalala, now Macpherson’s deputy at the DPWI. This includes Zimbini Hill, the IDT’s former board chairperson and Professor Raymond Nnaemeka Nkado, former dean of the faculty of engineering at Wits University.

It is understood that the newly constituted board will consider Macpherson’s recommendation for lifestyle audits when it meets this week.

PwC probe behind schedule

Macpherson also gave an update on the PwC probe into the oxygen plants debacle. It was originally envisaged that PwC would have wrapped up its work in March, but the previous IDT board and certain IDT staffers have allegedly been doing their utmost to hamper the investigation.

“I can now reveal that I received feedback from the department and PwC that, in February this year, at an introductory meeting between PwC investigators and the board of the IDT, various IDT officials, IDT management and many of the trustees who were appointed prior to my tenure made unjustified demands as prerequisites to cooperating with the investigation,” said Macpherson.

According to the minister, the minutes of the meeting showed that the previous IDT board and the IDT officials insisted that the DPWI had no legal right to appoint PwC to probe the R836-million oxygen plants project.

Macpherson said this demonstrated “a shocking disregard for accountability.”

What’s more, the PwC investigators have still not obtained from the IDT all the records they have requested to conduct their investigation.

“In a briefing with the PwC investigators on Friday, they informed me that, as a result of the delay caused by [the IDT’s] demands, they had only received documentation from the IDT a day or two earlier and that the information that they had requested was incomplete,” said Macpherson.

He said the investigation was only about 25% completed and that it would have been concluded by now had it not been for the IDT’s alleged refusal to fully cooperate.

“However, I do believe that the final report will be available to myself as the Minister by the end of May 2025, whereby I will make it available to the President, public and Cabinet,” said the minister.

The Hawks are also investigating the oxygen plants project, but it is not clear when the law-enforcement body will wrap up its work. DM

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PwC probe behind schedule