Health ministry in new accountability queries

Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete (R) and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame at a function before they fell out. FILE PHOTO 

By  ISAAC IMAKA

PARLIAMENT- The ministry of health failed to account for Shs92 billion, according to the Auditor General’s report for the 2011/2012 financial year.

The audit was carried out to ascertain whether funds allocated to the ministry under the national budget were utilised properly.

The audit also sought to find out whether goods and services, financed by the ministry, were procured in accordance with the government guidelines.
However, the ministry’s accounting officer, Dr Asuman Lukwago, according to the report, failed to account for Shs92 billion.

The ministry was allocated Shs217 billion in the 2011/12 financial year.
The audit revealed that the ministry withdrew Shs27 billion including Shs3.9 billion for the national disease control from an account and diverted it for an unexplained purpose.

“This practice undermines the importance of the budgeting process as well as the intentions of the appropriating authority and leads to misleading reporting,” the Auditor General (AG) observes in his report.

“I advised the accounting officer to streamline the budgeting process to ensure sufficient funds are allocated to each account,” the AG says.
However, Mr Lukwago says withdrawing money from the account for which it was intended, does not mean misuse of funds.

“You can mischarge the budget when you have been given permission by Finance,” he said, adding that in this particular case, government had told all accounting officers to reduce on consumptive expenditures.

“You will see that money which had been earlier on planned to buy vehicles was used to construct health centres. I am sure our minister will explain all those issues when we appear before the Public Accounts Committee in Parliament,” Dr Lukwago said.

The audit also discovered that Shs2.2 billion was advanced to employees’ personal bank accounts.

This, according to the AG is irregular and exposes government funds to a risk of loss “since staff may be tempted to divert such funds to personal gain”.

Money advanced to accounts
A total of Shs731 million advanced on personal accounts remained unaccounted for.
“I could not confirm whether the funds in question were put to intended purposes,” the AG observes in the report. “I advised the accounting officer to consider recovery from the officers concerned,” he adds.

Another Shs434 million advanced to staff was found doubtful as it lacked activity reports and the requisition did not indicate the places inspected.




Also Shs1.1 billion was irregularly spent on consolidated allowances for junior staff but the basis of the payment could not be explained as the allowances were not provided for in the public service standing orders

.

The ministry also could not present accountability for Shs1.7 billion it purports to have spent on fuel for various ministry activities and another Shs68 million on fuel for staff. According to the report, the payment vouchers given to the auditors lacked evidence to which their usage could be linked.