adminPamela Shumba Senior Reporter
EXTERNAL auditors have started carrying out an extensive audit at Mpilo Central Hospital, while more hospitals across the country will be audited, the Minister of Health and Child Care, Dr David Parirenyatwa, said yesterday. Following investigations by The Chronicle that exposed graft at the Bulawayo hospital, Dr Parirenyatwa said it was possible that the corruption taking place at Mpilo Central Hospital could be happening at other health institutions.
“Mpilo gave me pointers that we should look at the whole health system in the country. We’re not accusing anybody but clearly what has been happening here could also be happening at other hospitals. We’re therefore planning to assign auditors to see if our institutions are being run in a proper manner.
“At Mpilo, an audit committee has already been put in place to audit the whole hospital systems. We’ll investigate further and we’ll do it in a systematic, efficient and transparent way,” said Dr Parirenyatwa in an interview soon after commissioning projects funded by Mimosa Mining Company at Mpilo Central Hospital.
He could not be drawn to reveal when the audit at the hospital would be complete but indicated that it was being done by external auditors.
The audit comes after Dr Lawrence Mantiziba, the hospital’s chief executive officer, was recently suspended together with operations director Duduza Regina Moyo, chairperson of the central buying unit Mxolisi Sibanda and finance director Charles Govo, to pave way for investigations into a tender scam that allegedly cost the hospital millions of dollars.
Dr Mantiziba is being charged with failing to put up systems to prevent fraud at the institution. Moyo and Sibanda allegedly colluded to influence awarding of tenders leading to the hospital losing millions of dollars, while Gove allegedly went against laid down procedure to pay suppliers without tax clearances.
Dr Parirenyatwa said the ministry had also started investigating a scam in which high ranking officials in the ministry allegedly looted a huge chunk of the $1.5 million released by Treasury for health workers’ allowances.
The 494 officials, including the ministry’s Permanent Secretary Dr Gerald Gwinji, were reportedly milking up to $403 per month as on-call allowances while nurses’ allowances remained at $3 per month.
The top officials were not entitled to the allowances as they did not work overtime.
Online Reporter