Ministry of Health fails to account for medical referrals
By Wezzie Gausi:
The Public Accounts Committee (Pac) of Parliament has asked the Ministry of Health (MoH) to account for the money spent on medical cases that were referred abroad.
This follows MoH officials’ failure to provide proper documentation for about K645.8 million spent on referrals to South Africa and India.
Pac Vice Chairperson Ned Poya said the citizenry needed to know if the monies were used for the intended purpose.
“What we want is for the ministry to produce documentation. As such, we have told them to do everything possible to get the documentation ready for the Auditor General (AG)’s office,” Poya said.
Secretary for Health Dr Charles Mwansambo said they failed to produce documents as they [documents] were in South Africa and India, where the money was channelled to.
He, however, said it was possible for office of the AG and ministry officials to travel to the two countries for an audit.
“The problem is that we do not have the documents in the country. So if we are to produce the documents, we have to travel and do the audits in the countries, which is very possible,” Mwansambo said.
