He told a press conference that Government had since rectified the anomalies.
“We take the blame,” said Dr Parirenyatwa. “Our HSB (Health Services Board) was supposed to work on that a long time ago. It was just a matter of terminology, which saw even officials from our head office getting on-call allowances, yet they do not do on-calls.”
On the targeted approach funding which was earmarked for hospitals, Dr Parirenyatwa said he was looking forward to engaging external auditors to unravel any acts of criminality that might have taken place.
“The targeted approach was a good initiative, because funds were disbursed directly to hospitals, systems were not followed. It then became difficult to monitor who is doing what,” said Dr Parirenyatwa.
“Let me emphasise that we are really hunting down on this issue of corruption and we want to make sure that it will not happen again in the health sector.”
Recently, Dr Parirenyatwa dismissed some management from Mpilo Central Hospital following an audit that unearthed a number of corrupt activities that included flouting of tender procedures and misappropriation of hospital funds.
He said Government set up a multi-stakeholder taskforce whose main mandate is to re-look allocation and disbursement of donor funding following several allegations of abuse by senior health officials.
The decision to come up with the taskforce, said Dr Parirenyatwa, was made at a health stakeholders meeting held in Harare last Friday. The main purpose of the meeting was to collectively identify and address existing challenges with regards to allocation of donor funds.
“We are pleased that we found a way forward,” he said. “We put up a small taskforce to re-look at how the Health Transition Fund (HTF) has been disbursed and to re-look at ways we can improve on its efficiency. I am certain that it will be done to our satisfaction and to your satisfaction as well.”
Dr Parirenyatwa acknowledged that the system had some irregularities on who should get what, citing an example of village health workers who he said were getting incentives almost at par with nurses’ salaries.
Village health workers are not trained, but are recruited from villagers with a passion in health care, and they act as a link between Government and the community.
“So, I said no, let’s re-look this and have our priorities correct,” said Dr Parirenyatwa.
Although he could not immediately provide names of those in the taskforce, Dr Parirenyatwa said its composition included nurses, doctors, midwives, clerks and community representatives.
He said the taskforce was given up to June 25 to report back on their findings and recommendations. Of late, the Ministry of Health and Child Care has been in the spotlight facing allegations of abusing donor funds such as the HTF, and an allocation from treasury of $1,5 million, which was meant for allowances.
Senior officials were fingered for pocketing huge allowances from both the funding allocations at the expense of junior nursing staff, who actually do the dirty work. herald NEWS
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