GOVT RECRUITS 11 TO MANAGE CMS AMID PROBE

MANZINI – Government has recruited 11 people, who are not in the civil service, to manage the Central Medical Stores (CMS) in the interim.

The recruitment of the task team to manage the operations of the CMS follows that 11 employees of the Ministry of Health’s department were suspended. The 11 people were suspended to make way for a forensic audit,  which was a recommendation by the Auditor General (AG), Timothy Matsebula. The AG had, following his investigation, recommended that among other things, the Lizzie Nkosi-led Ministry of Health should investigate the missing stock and unaccounted for medicines, with the aim of recovering and report any unrecovered stock to the Losses Committee in the Ministry of Finance.

Facilities

This followed that, among his findings, Matsebula reported that when projected to the population of public health facilities, the total of missing and unaccounted for pharmaceuticals amounted to E151.6 million. He also reported that during the investigation, he observed that there was missing stock of medicines and or unaccounted for pharmaceuticals, amounting to E18 793 823.99 in the fiscal years ended March 31, 2021 and 2022. His findings were that there was missing stock of medical drugs amounting to E5 977 042.11, which was made up of E5 848 589.89 in the fiscal year ended  March 31, 2022 and E128 452.22 in the fiscal year March 31, 2021, as reported in the trading account. It was said his findings further detailed that the financial statement disclosed the missing stock as a difference between physical count by the CMS and Government Accounting System.

Matsebula was said to have observed that pharmaceuticals amounting E12 812 281.28, which were acquired during the financial years 2020/2021 and 2021/2022, were not accounted for.
These pharmaceuticals, it was said, were either not recorded in stock record cards; had no stock cards to record the medicines on; the stock card balances and physical count balances were not tallying; and there were shortages in stock received. He said when projected to the population of public health facilities, the total of missing and unaccounted-for pharmaceuticals amounted to E151.6 million. In light of these findings, Matsebula said: “The ministry should investigate the missing stock and unaccounted for medicines with the aim of recovering and report any unrecovered stock to the Losses Committee at the Ministry of Finance.”

In line with this advice, the minister of Health confirmed that a forensic investigation had started. Nkosi said it started in April and as such, personnel were momentarily removed from their duty station to allow for that process. Nkosi said: “Current staff is temporary appointed by civil service (Civil Service Commission), or temporarily seconded into the civil service.” This publication gathered from impeccable sources that the personnel who were recruited in the interim were sourced from parastatals and also the private sector. The sources said the recruited individuals were engaged in similar tasks in their various establishments, which include procurement and or distribution of pharmaceuticals. It was gathered that the team of 11 shall be engaging in their duties at the CMS as of this week. It is on record that the CMS, among other challenges, has been experiencing shortage of medication which led to stock-outs at facility level due to a weak inventory management system. There has always been a challenge in the accountability of the medication that was eventually dispensed to patients in health facilities due to weak stock management systems.

Investigation

The AG, following his investigation, recommended that the system should then interface with the Client Management Information System (CMIS) so that the stock issued to health facilities was accounted for and medicine issued to patients was traced. It is worth noting that the weak control systems resulted in a public outcry over shortage of medication in hospitals, which led to an influx of one-room pharmacies. This publication also reported ‘its investigation on mushrooming one room retail pharmacies which were taking advantage of the shortage of medical drugs in public health facilities. Furthermore, there were cries from members of society wherein they bemoaned the shortage of drugs as they were offered prescription letters in health facilities.

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