SIU freezes R42.4 million in Tembisa Hospital bribe assets

The Special Investigating Unit has secured about R42.4 million in cash, property, pensions and investments linked to bribes allegedly paid to officials at Tembisa Hospital, in the latest civil recovery from a procurement scandal that investigators say ran into the hundreds of millions of rands.

The Special Tribunal granted the preservation order last month. It stops Zacharia Tshisele, his civil wife Phumudzo Tshisele, his customary wife Fulufhelo Lineth Tshililo, and connected entities from disposing of assets while the SIU’s main case is decided. The SIU announced the order on 27 September 2026.

The unit says the frozen value is tied to about R100 million in bribes allegedly paid by businessman Stefan Joel Govindraju to secure procurement deals worth about R600 million. Tshisele and former hospital official Duduzile Nobungwana are not challenging the SIU’s preservation steps.

What the order freezes

The Tribunal interdicted the Government Employees Pension Fund and the Government Pensions Administration Agency from paying out Tshisele’s pension, valued at R1,089,808.32.

Two properties are also frozen:

• A Birchleigh North house in Kempton Park, registered to Tshisele and Phumudzo Tshisele, valued at about R1.3 million.
• A Delmore Park property in Boksburg, registered to Fulufhelo Lineth Tshililo, valued at about R820,000.

The order restrains payments and dealings by Joseph Fhumulani Muthaphuli and Ernest Monnakgotla. Monnakgotla is a former area manager at Tembisa Hospital and sat on the hospital’s quotation adjudication committee. The SIU alleges that Tshisele and Monnakgotla worked together to move hospital funds into two syndicates.

A separate May order already froze a R6.4 million luxury property in Midstream Estate and R1.8 million in pension benefits belonging to Duduzile Nkosazana Nobungwana, a former supply-chain clerk who later held buyer and vetting-committee roles. She resigned during a disciplinary hearing. The SIU says those two sets of orders and repayment agreements make up the R42.4 million.

How the money allegedly moved

The SIU says two of the three major syndicates at the hospital are linked to Tshisele.

The first is the Govindraju syndicate, which investigators say used 75 companies and received about R600 million from the hospital. The second is the Mazibuko syndicate, operated by Rudolf Mduduzi Mazibuko, which used 17 companies and received about R283 million. Both, the SIU says, depended on hospital officials to push unlawful procurement through.

Tshisele was appointed operational manager of the hospital theatre in 2017. Investigators say he used that post to start supply-chain processes and confirm receipt of goods, which released payments to syndicate-linked companies. He was directly involved in transactions worth about R15.9 million. Each was kept under the R500,000 threshold that would have forced competitive bidding. The SIU says many of those goods were unnecessary, undelivered or only partly delivered.

That conduct, the unit says, breached the Constitution, the Public Finance Management Act, the Public Service Act, Treasury regulations and the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act.

Funds from the Govindraju network, including payments from Diolinx and Fuligenix, were channelled through Create 10, a company co-directed by Tshisele, Monnakgotla and Muthaphuli. The SIU says the money financed properties, mining stakes and a film.

Tshisele and Monnakgotla invested R17.5 million in Manngwe Mining and Solmag Mining. A further R15.5 million was advanced through a vehicle called Time Bomb towards a film titled The Bad Bishop. The SIU also says R1.5 million was transferred into an account belonging to Tshisele’s nine-year-old daughter.

The Tribunal ordered Manngwe Mining, Solmag Mining and Time Bomb to pay amounts due under those funding agreements into the trust account of the SIU’s attorneys, Noko Maimela Incorporated. Create 10 and its directors may not dispose of assets, declare dividends or take on new liabilities outside ordinary business.

Money already coming back

In 2025 Tshisele signed an acknowledgement of debt with the SIU. He has since repaid R13,530,894.27 in four instalments. Manngwe Mining agreed to repay R17.5 million over 36 months.

Those repayments sit alongside the frozen assets. They are civil recoveries. They are not a criminal conviction.

Criminal case still open

Under the SIU Act 74 of 1996, the unit has referred evidence of criminal conduct to the National Prosecuting Authority and is continuing civil action to recover state losses.

That referral led to Govindraju’s arrest in August. He faces 70 counts of fraud, theft, money laundering and corruption-related offences arising from the supply of medical goods and equipment to Tembisa Hospital. News24 reported that he was due in the Johannesburg Specialised Commercial Crimes Court at Palm Ridge for plea and sentencing.

The wider Tembisa probe has already identified three syndicates. Earlier SIU work put the looting above R2 billion and named the Maumela network alongside Mazibuko and Govindraju. The hospital is also the institution where whistleblower Babita Deokaran was murdered in August 2021 after she flagged suspicious payments.

The R42.4 million is a fraction of the contracts under investigation. It is, so far, the clearest public sign that money alleged to have left the hospital as bribes is being traced into houses, pensions, a mining stake and a film budget — and that two of the officials in the SIU’s sights are not fighting the freeze.