Lack of fiscal prudence costs government $$millions – PS reveals

Mar 01, 2017 News

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-RHOs, Programmes Heads urged to be better managers

Because of protracted financial shortcomings within the Ministry of Public Health,

Government was last year forced to repay in excess of US$80,000 (G$16 million) to a donor agency – The Global Fund. This disclosure was yesterday made by Permanent Secretary within the Public Health Ministry, Mr. Trevor Thomas.
Thomas disclosed that this development was linked to the procurement of equipment which included microscopes, boats and other items that were reportedly purchased and sent to multiple regions. The situation became problematic when no one was able to account for the procured items.
“Over time they became lost…lost from the books, lost physically; in other words, nobody could account for them,” related Thomas.
After being tipped of the development which reportedly had its genesis in the Vector Control Services Unit of the Health Ministry, the United States-based Global Fund had dispatched a team to conduct an investigation here. This saw the team scrutinising the Ministry’s Vector Control Services Unit’s records from as far back as 2005 onwards.
It was able to uncover instances of what has been described as “ineligible expenses”. Since the items classified as “ineligible expenses” were not found The Global Fund demanded that Government repay its value.
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is an international financing organization that aims to attract and disburse additional resources to prevent and treat HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

According to Thomas, “I had the challenging task to justify this [re-payment] to the Cabinet and I wasn’t even at the Ministry at the time. I was nowhere near the Ministry of Health at the time but I had to explain to the auditors and my principals why we can’t account for those items.”
Government was required to repay the sum, Thomas noted, because in excess of $300 million was being held up by The Global Fund because of the Ministry’s inability to account for its spending.
“They said they would not pay that until we pay back for the ineligible expenses,” informed Thomas.
The Permanent Secretary’s revealing disclosure was forthcoming when he addressed the opening session of a Regional Health Officers and Programme Heads meeting at the Hadfield Street, Georgetown Regency Suites.
Premised on the foregoing remarks he cautioned the officials in attendance to “manage resources in a more efficient and effect manner…I am calling on RHOs and REOs to help us in this regard. Ensure that equipment provided to help in the delivery of our programmes is used for the intended purpose and that we develop strict accountability frameworks.”
According to Thomas, “It would appear that whenever we are given resources from donors we feel that if we are not pressured to account to them we don’t account for them, because [you] do not turn up at PAC (Public Account Committee)…”
The PAC is a Parliamentary Committee tasked with auditing the revenue and expenditure of government.
Thomas considered that if keen efforts are not made to manage resources efficiently then “we can very well be pouring monies into activities that the output is in fact zero.”
Continuing with an example of how mismanagement could easily occur, Thomas noted that one of the activities that the Ministry has embraced for years is its response to vectors by way of fogging exercises.
But according to the Permanent Secretary, whose credibility has been brought into question because of allegations of mismanagement and procurement irregularities, “You don’t know, but I have asked them (Vector Control Services Unit) to give me the information about how much we are spending on that…We are spending millions of dollars but we do not have the entomology capacity,” considered the Permanent Secretary.
Entomology, a branch of zoology, is the scientific study of insects.
Because of the lack of entomology capacity, Thomas informed that “for years we have had a vector control programme that cannot tell us whether in fact the mosquitoes that we have been spending millions to spray have in fact gotten resistant to it (chemical).”
He said that since “we do not understand how the mosquitoes proliferate,” moves are currently being made by the Ministry to build capacity for entomology.
But this is only at the central level. Thomas noted that while there is need for strategic measures to be implemented at a regional level to ensure that programmes are managed efficiently, it should not be done in a manner that merely seeks to attract attention but rather produce results that can help to improve the status of health care.
Thomas underscored the importance of fiscal prudence especially in light of the fact that the health sector is confronted with a time of transitioning.
“Years ago there was a lot of support from organisations such as The Global Fund, USAID, UNAIDS, CDC [but] those funding are drying up,” Thomas emphasised yesterday.
Currently a representative of The Global Fund is in the country helping officials of the health sector chart the way forward to achieve sustained independence.
“While The Global Fund is not speaking of transitioning at this point in time they are talking about sustainability; what happens when the funding ends.”
Thomas added, “(Yesterday) morning I had an early meeting with CDC and again CDC is saying to us they are not going to support us indefinitely. We have to start looking at how we are going to be taking over…It means then that fiscal prudence, management of financial resources has to be given priority.”
In this regard, Thomas said that the support from donor agencies must only be sought for ventures that cannot be funded locally.
“I am getting tired of seeing requests for funding agencies to buy snacks and meals for workshops; for expenses that do not require foreign exchange,” Thomas chided as he added, “whenever we get funding from agencies and we use the money for things that can actually be done with local funding we are being poor managers.”
According to the Permanent Secretary, he has already brought his concerns to the attention of the relatively new Senior Minister of Public Health, Ms. Volda Lawrence, even as he reiterated that “fiscal prudence has got to be the watch word; we have got to manage our financial resources.
“Gone are the days when there was so much that was available and we could do what we wanted with it,” he added.

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