Iganga, (UK):- The State House Health Monitoring Unit (SHHMU) has tasked the president’s office in Iganga district to set up strict measures to prevent health workers in government health facilities from engaging in acts of corruption, extortion and mismanagement.
The Director (SHHMU) Dr. Warren Namara says the office of the Resident District Commissioner (RDC) has received a number of officials including the District Internal Security Officers (DISOs) who are meant to investigate the irregularities in service by civil servants and take appropriate measures.
While engaging a number of Iganga district stakeholders in health and other departments on Tuesday, July 02, Dr Namara said they have spent at least a month in the district to monitor health service delivery, drug utilization, infrastructure, human resource management, finance, among others and had to present findings to the district.
He says a number of irregularities were discovered at Iganga General Hospital and other health facilities in the district, prompting them to suspend some officials at the district hospital. The officials who were suspended include the hospital administrator Mr. Ramathan Mugolofa Gabooli, the medical superintendent Dr. Dauda Mugoya and the hospital accountant Mr. Michael Isabirye.
We have established that the said officers were also temporarily suspended from the payroll as investigations into the matter continue.
“We can’t say what has been eaten but about Shs1b cannot be accounted properly and the auditors cannot give their conclusion as early as now. It is quite possible that at the end of our evaluation or audit, more money may have been discovered,” Dr. Namara said.
He said service delivery has been affected as cases of stealing drugs in the health facilities, absenteeism of workers and poor hygiene at the facility continue to mar the district’s general hospital at Nakavule. He urged authorities in the district to follow procedures and always pop in at any moment for sanity.
“They must follow procedure and the office of the CAO who controls money must be prepared to sanction people who don’t work, who abscond from duty, and discipline those who absent themselves. The DISO must be able to give the information to the RDC after getting such information,” Dr. Namara added.
Dr Namaara said they have already asked security and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to take up the matter of officers who were cited in corruption at various health facilities in Iganga.
“For those who stole the money, we have already asked the police and the DPP office to take up the matter because we work with these offices. We wanted to share with the district executive and community on our findings so that they can address the issues in order to have better health services,” Dr. Namara emphasized.
The Deputy Resident District Commissioner (DRDC) for Iganga district Mr. Mwanje Eddy said there is negligence of duty in some offices and that corruption has been rotating around top leaders at the general hospital and other in charges at other facilities and he pledged to work with SHHMU in eliminating cases of corruption.
“This time we are going to intensify our business and no corrupt officials will be spared, indeed we are going to bite. Corruption has been zeroed on top officials in medical centers like in charges, medical superintendent, accountant and administrator which is really very absurd,”
“This has opened our eyes because we thought they were doing the best work but only fake accountability documents were being presented by them. We have engaged state house officials to always support us with technical people like internal auditors and accountants while in the field to dig out facts scientifically and guide us on how to handle such people,” RDC Mwanje said.
The unit discovered in their investigations that there was mismanagement of donor money and theft of drugs in health facilities and they confirmed that some staff from some health facilities in the district like Nakalama health centre III, Bugono health center IV and Kasambika health centre are being investigated.
During the engagement, the SHHMU director Dr. Namara unveiled the acting leadership of Iganga General Hospital. He unveiled Ms Anni Amati as the hospital medical superintendent, Mr Wakabi Deo as the hospital administrator and Ms Kobusingye Diana as the accountant, who pledged to fight corruption in the facility.
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