Health minister Obadiah Moyo is taking the heat from an
audit report which exposed massive corruption at Chitungwiza Central Hospital
during his term at the helm of the institution.
But Moyo yesterday dismissed the report, dated October 24,
2017 and addressed to the then Health secretary Gerald Gwinji, claiming its
authors had “ulterior motives”.
Of concern in the report done at the behest of Gwinji, was
the fact that the hospital had lost a lot of revenue due through opaque public
private partnerships (PPPs) contracts.
“Revenue collected by the hospital declined from a monthly
average of $315 740 in 2013 to $75 090 in 2017. As a result, the hospital was
failing to pay its suppliers of goods and services, thus compromising service
delivery,” the report read.
The report said the hospital had entered into six PPP
contracts from 2013 for provision of, pharmacy, radiology, funeral pallor,
hospital mortuary, catering, pathology laboratory and outsourcing of a coffee
shop and kiosk.
But a review of the contract documents revealed that the
hospital executive lacked legal advice in the formulation of the agreements.
The auditors noted that the hospital surrendered its
premises, equipment, staff and entire operations to the PPPs in return for a
percentage of the profit generated from provision of services to patients. This
posed a risk of improper safeguarding of assets and compromise service
delivery.
Another example of corrupt activities included a contract
between the hospital and BIG Diagnostics (Pvt) Ltd which allowed the partner to
evaluate the hospital equipment in radiology, but there was no provision for
involvement of technical personnel from the hospital or Ministry of Health.
“This posed the risk of unfavourable and biased evaluation
against the hospital. The partners evaluation concluded that there was no
guarantee for the continued use of the hospital equipment,” the auditors noted.
Another issue of concern was the conversion of the hospital
mortuary into a funeral parlour, resulting in storage charges being levied for
dead bodies contrary to the ministry’s standard policy that provides the
services for free.
As part of their recommendations, the auditors said the
ministry should institute a board of investigation to evaluate the
establishment and operation of the PPPs at the institution.
However, Moyo rubbished the report, saying the partnerships
were beneficial and other public hospitals were actually looking into similar
arrangements.
Speaking during a Health Professions Authority annual
congress in Harare on Wednesday, he said those behind the leaked report had
ulterior motives.
Moyo has been under pressure from the restive doctors who
are agitating for his resignation blaming him for running down the country’s
health system. Newsday
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