The DA in Limpopo has written to the Health Portfolio Committee chairperson, Dr William Malebana to summon the Limpopo Health MEC, Dieketseng Mashego, and the department’s senior officials to appear before the committee to provide further details on the excessive expenditure on the Veritas Digital contract to scan and digitise medical files.
In a response to a DA parliamentary question (see here), the department indicated that it has already spent R1 027 915 629,82 since the appointment of Veritas Digital till November 2024. In the same response it indicated an additional R250 million was budgeted to the end of the 2024/2025 financial year with further allocations to be determined after a review process in March 2025.
The contract is only for the scanning, archiving and storing of medical records and has been progressing at a snail’s pace and is far from completion despite the excessive spending. 523 health facilities form part of the contract but only 64 facilities had their scanning completed by November 2024. It is even more concerning that this only refers to inactive files and no active files have been scanned.
The contract awarded to Veritas Digital has become a noose around the neck of Limpopo’s health system. Limpopo has numerous challenges such as doctor and nurse shortages, lack of equipment and dilapidated infrastructure that are much more pressing and must be addressed.
This expenditure on digitising files is unacceptably excessive and at 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.