Africa-Press – Tanzania. MINISTER for Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children, Dr Dorothy Gwajima, has directed all institutions under her docket to lay down their strategies on how they will play a role in the envisaged Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
The minister said as the UHC is expected to have its Bill tabled in the next Parliamentary meeting in September, the institutions should strategise how they would contribute to effective implementation of the programme.
“Each entity under the ministry has to get prepared on how to contribute to the universal health coverage,” Dr Gwajima stated when inaugurating the 2nd Board of Directors for the Government Chemist Laboratory Authority (GCLA) on Friday.
She challenged: “We are heading to the Universal Health Coverage, how is the GCLA positioning itself to contribute to it.” Dr Gwajima said the authority has a big role to ensure that chemical contents in medicines are safe and do not harm the health of consumers. “Members of the board have a duty to ensure that the authority fulfills its mandate. You have to be patriotic to control importation of products containing unsafe chemicals and avoid temptations of corruption,” she urged.
She said the launching of the board was the continuation of efforts to ensure efficiency in government’s institutions under the ministry, noting that she has so far launched several other boards.
“Members of the boards of directors, therefore have to work hard and yield big impacts in order to support efforts by President Samia Suluhu Hassan to ensure every institution has a board of directors,” she stated.
Highlighting achievements by the previous GCLA’s board of directors, Dr Gwajima said it managed to raise revenue collection from 15bn/- in 2017/18 to 18bn/- in 2020/21 financial year.
Earlier, Government Chief Chemist Dr Fidelice Mafumiko said between 2018/19 and 2020/21 they received and tested 236,750 samples of narcotics, and 3913 samples were for criminal cases. Dr Mafumiko further noted that 3332 of the total samples involved chemical products for checking their quality.
During that period the authority managed to register 3024 stakeholders who deal with chemicals, such as importing, transporting, selling and others.
On her part, GCLA board chair Prof Ester Jason thanked President Samia for retaining her in the position as board chairperson for the second term.
