The Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) is now
monitoring public hospitals and clinics to curb thefts and ensure drugs are not
diverted to the black market. This follows checks that were done at the
country’s drug procurement and supply entity, the National Pharmaceutical
Company (Natpharm).
The Government has been making strenuous efforts to supply
medicines to public hospitals and clinics, but there were suspicions that some
of the drugs were being diverted to the black market.
Through its Prevention and Corporate Governance Unit, ZACC
is targeting Parirenyatwa, Chitungwiza and Sally Mugabe (formerly Harare
Central) hospitals, among other public hospitals and clinics.
In a statement at the weekend, the commission said the
operation was an extension of ongoing Natpharm compliance checks on drugs.
“The objective of the operation is to ensure that there are
no leakages and abuse in the distribution of drugs to hospitals,” said ZACC.
“The operation is meant to bring sanity to hospitals and
improve service delivery and stamp out corruption that has seen patients in
some parts of the country being made to pay huge amounts of money for drugs
which are sourced by Government funds or donated by the Global Fund, WHO and
other international partners.
“The compliance unit is tracking the path of distribution
of such drugs from the time they leave Natpharm until the drugs are
administered to patients.”
ZACC said it was testing the effectiveness and reliability
of the distribution system to ensure that it was not open to abuse. Some health workers, it said, were being found selling
essential drugs which were in short supply in formal channels.
“Some doctors are prescribing alternative drugs which are
not in stock and refer patients to their pharmacies where sometimes patients
are forced to pay exorbitant prices in US dollars,” said ZACC.
Other areas to be covered by the operation include disposal
of expired drugs which are being sold on the streets.
ZACC is seeking to have the hospitals adopt electronic
systems of drugs storage and administration to avoid the manipulation and abuse
of the stock card system.
According to the Head of the Operation, Mrs Clara Nyakotyo,
a similar operation has been conducted in provincial, district and mission
hospitals in Mashonaland Central and Manicaland provinces.
There are Government plans to capacitate local
pharmaceutical manufacturers, establish more manufacturing plants, including
toll manufacturing and bonded warehouses, to improve availability and
affordability of medicines and medical sundries in both the public and private
sector.
Meanwhile, ZACC has warned senior executives in public
institutions to stop victimising their subordinates for assisting it with
information that can help to investigate possible cases of corruption.
Targeted subordinates were either being summarily dismissed
or redeployed to other departments without following due process.
ZACC said it felt betrayed by the actions of such
executives which amounted to unfair labour practice and abuse of office.A case in point is that of eight ZESA Holdings workers who
were fired last year for unlawful job action, breaching of the Official Secrets
Act and insubordination.
The workers were however, recently reinstated by the new
management at the power utility after they were victimised for outing
corruption tendencies that exposed some shoddy deals.
ZACC spokesperson Commissioner John Makamure said last week
that they were overwhelmed with reports of victimisation of workers in public
institutions for assisting the anti-graft body.
“The Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission is inundated with
reports from the general public in which there is evidence of victimisation by
authorities in the public sector,” said Comm Makamure.
“What is utter disturbing is a situation where an entity is
visited by the Zacc, either for the purposes of conducting systems audit,
investigations or both and later on, some of the employees are served with
suspension letters or are advised that the department is in the process of
redeploying them to other departments.
“The procedure is riddled with a lot of questions as to
whether or not the authorities are aware that there is a Labour Act Chapter
28.01, Statutory Instruments and various regulations, which legally guide any
decision-making by them.
“However, such decisions are promptly arrived at just to
catch the targeted employees unawares, leave them confused for some time and
pounce on the hapless individuals.
“One would rush to think these are simple labour matters,
when in essence it is corruption masked in what looks like labour issues.
“If this sinister practice is allowed to persist, then
going forward, nobody will be willing to assist either the Zimbabwe
Anti-Corruption Commission or Zimbabwe Republic Police during investigations.
The continued victimisation of innocent employees leaves nobody safe under the
caprices of the vastly corrupt bosses.”
Comm Makamure said the problem was being aided by human
resources departments that allowed people to be reassigned without
justification.
“The second question is how on earth do the human resources
departments, charged with the redeployment of employees, accept and redeploy
staff without demanding reasons why the redeployments have to be done,” he
said.
“One would have thought that the human resources
departments should turn down such unscrupulous ways of subjecting employees to
unprofessional movements to other departments. In any case, the employees are
transferred without following any legal procedure as required in the Labour Act
and supporting regulations.”
This, Comm Makamure said, amounted to unfair labour
practices, which is also a form of abuse of office. Herald
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