Are we missing something?Publish the Audit Report at Ministry of Health and ZMMSA
Amb. Emmanuel Mwamba wrote;
President Hakainde Hichilema received a preliminary report on the theft and plunder of public and donated funds occurring at the Ministry of Health and the Zambia Medicines and Medical Supplies Agency (ZMMSA).
We are aware that there has been an earlier forensic audit commissioned by the Global Fund, one of the key donors to the health sector, which revealed predatory and corrupt behaviour, for example by the Ministry of Health Permanent Secretary for Administration, Prof Christopher Simoonga, who attempted to literally award himself a $6.8million contract meant for faith based organisations.
This is a ministry where the Minister of Health Silvia Masebo at the time, was fingered as being heavily involved in the procurement of the $100million infectious diseases hospitals.
The person who was awarded the contract, accused the Minister of soliciting for a bribe and proceeded to write his complaint and allegations to President Hichilema and to the Anti-Corruption Commission.
President Hichilema instead fired the Permanent Secretary, Dr. George Magwende for the saga.
Masebo was also named in the $70million procurement of medicines from Egypt.
The Ministry of Health through ZMMSA single-sourced the Egyptian Authority for Unified Procurement Medical Agency(UPA) and signed a preliminary contract worth $70million for the importation of medicines.
Government officials purported that this was a government-to-government bilateral arrangement.
UPA would then buy from manufacturers in Egypt and India to supply the medicines to ZMMSA.
In October 2023, UPA sent drugs worth $25million to Zambia.
It has since been established that, later 61 trucks carrying medicines worth $25million were marooned in Beira, Mozambique for three (3) months and later at a yard in Makeni in Lusaka for seven (7) months!
We don’t know the efficacy and potency of drugs marooned in trucks and subjected to the harsh elements of wind, rain, heat for ten months!
The corrupt had moved on and did not bother about the logistics of the delivery of the medicines.
And now President Hichilema says, from the audit, there is a cartel that has been found to profit from government drugs.
We hope that President Hichilema is NOT repeating Masebo’s tired rhetoric of blaming the “Indian Cartel”, or nurses, doctors and pharmacists of pilfering medicines instead of dealing with the real thieves and plunderers who are currently being investigated by the Anti-Corruption Commission.
To be fair to all including cooperating partners, let the President publish the audit report.