A R35.5m PPE tender, issued in June 2020 by the Eastern Cape health department, when the first wave of Covid-19 infections was at its worst, and which was already under suspicion because of a Special Investigating Unit probe into all such contracts, has disintegrated into a legal and accounting shambles.

At the centre of the setting up of the tender and its subsequent unravelling was former journalist turned businessman Vukile Pokwana who scored the R35.5m tender — of which R16.2m was net profit — for himself and his partners...