The Special Investigating Unit has executed a court order at a vehicle dealership owned by Mpumalanga businessman Yusuf Omar, as part of its ongoing investigation into alleged tender irregularities linked to Tembisa Hospital.
SIU Spokesperson, Selby Makgotho, confirmed that the operation forms part of asset preservation measures authorised by the court.
The unit also targeted a specific vehicle central to the investigation, which is alleged to have been the subject of a transaction in which payment was made despite the vehicle not being transferred or removed.
According to the SIU, the intervention is aimed at securing evidence and preserving assets connected to the matter under investigation.
Omar was subsequently taken to the nearest police station, where further investigative processes are underway.
SIU Spokesperson Selby Makgotho says, “What is happening is not supposed to be happening because we are simply here to execute a court order, and that shows that there was a part as part of the investigation into the Tembisa Hospital irregularities, there was an order preserving the assets, so we found that sometime around between the 12th of may through the curator that we have appointed, we found that there was a movement in relation to the vehicle as one of the preserved assets”.
Makgotho says, “What we are here to do is to ensure that the order that was granted to effect that there is also a need to arrest. That is what the court judgment is actually saying. Basically, we are here to also take that car, but also the order further directs that in case of any difficulty, the owner of this property that we are at should appear before court sometime in early July. I think it is around the 3rd of July, where to answer as to why he should not be held in contempt because what we are seeing here basically is to be in contempt of the court, to fail to implement the safeguards by the preservation order”.
The SIU says that the dealership owner has been served with a warrant of arrest for refusing to cooperate with authorities.
Makgotho further says, “I understand that this car has been sold more than four times. yes. The investigation actually found that pursuant to the preservation order, the car has actually moved from one dealer to the other, and what actually is happening is that there was never a physical movement of the vehicle. It’s only money that has exchanged hands. So, in some instances, it’s about four times that the car actually never left the dealership, but money had been paid. And one of these instances is that when the curator was actually doing a routine check in relation to the e-vanities, that is where he picked up that indeed the car had been sold”.
