Africa-Press – Uganda. The Ministry of Health has explained the discrepancies highlighted in the use of funds allocated to them for fighting the Covid-19 pandemic between 2019 and 2020.
Last week, the Parliamentary Covid-19 Taskforce led by Bugweri Country MP Abdu Katutu presented its report that revealed numerous gaps in the ministry’s Covid expenditure and tasked the minister to provide answers.
On July 7, the Health minister, Dr Jane Ruth Aceng, and the ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Dr Diana Atwine, and other officials appeared before the committee instituted by the Deputy Speaker evaluate the response to the pandemic.
In an August 5 response by the ministry seen by this newspaper, the discrepancies are due to computation errors and expenses not accounted for in the reports the ministry presented to the committee.
The report indicated the ministry had spent more money than appropriated.
According to the report, Parliament appropriated Shs94.18b to the ministry, but a review of the actual expenditures submitted to the taskforce revealed a total of Shs99b had been accounted for.
“The taskforce noted that this amount is over and above the unount appropriated by Shs4.8b. The source of the additional funds totaling to Shs4.8b remains unknown,” states the report.
Ministry cites errors
However, the ministry said that was an error. “The noted discrepancy of Shs4.8b between the appropriated amount (Shs94.18b) and the reported expenditure (Shs99b) was due to a computation error. The correct expenditure is Shs92.4b, leaving a balance Shs1.7b unspent as attached in Annex 1. The unspent balance of Shs1.7b was returned to the consolidated fund,” statement reads.
The ministry also explained the contradicting figures in the facemask distribution, where the committee reported that the mask funds had been inflated by Shs2b.
The taskforce investigation found a total of Shs36.7m masks at a cost of Shs2,400 per mask were procured and distributed to 135 districts and to all candidate classes across the country.
The total cost for Shs36.7m fabric masks amounts to only Shs88b.But the report revealed that after the parliamentary taskforce reviewed the ministry accountability, a total of Shs90.9b was spent on procuring 37.9 million masks.
The ministry said this was a regrettable error.“The noted discrepancy between the quantity and cost of masks that was carried in the statement of July 7 and the figures in the accountability report is regretted,” it notes.
The ministry also said the extra Shs2b was used to procure 938,856 masks, which brings the total masks distributed to 37.6 million.
Resource shortages
The ministry indicated gross resource shortfall, including human resource, Personal Protective Equipment, which is hindering the response. The current funding gap for PPEs is Shs.193.6b. The Shs461.7b of the Shs1.3 trillion resurgence plan budget, July to June 2022, has so far been released.
