E800 000 drugs into SA
charged for alleged contravention of the Medical Act,” reads part of the statement.
It is worth noting that leading to the enquiry by the AG, there had been complaints from almost all medical facilities that there was no medication.
As such, there were claims that some of the medication was being stolen to be supposedly sold to mushrooming pharmacies in the various parts of the country.
In February 2023, Matsebula presented his Forensic Investigation Proposal and Audit of Acquisition, Distribution, and Management of Pharmaceuticals Report wherein he stated that drugs worth E151.6 million were missing and or unaccounted for in public health facilities around the country.
Misuse
The AG supposed the cause of this to be, among other things, theft and misuse for personal benefit, which in turn led to a public outcry on the shortage of medical drugs and pharmaceuticals.
The audit focused on the acquisition and distribution of medicines to public health facilities, including the Central Medical Stores (CMS), under the administration of the Ministry of Health, and covered the 2020/21 and 2021/22 financial years. The investigation by Matsebula was prompted by the constant shortage of medical supplies and drugs, which has been a continuous challenge in the public health sector in the kingdom over the years.
This challenge has continued despite interventions by the Ministry of Health to strengthen its stock controls. This issue has seen health practitioners petitioning government in various instances and they raised concerns and outlined that, among other things, they were now issuing prescription letters instead of affording the citizenry adequate care, as per their oath of service.
Discrepancies
It has been gathered that during the AG’s audit, a number of discrepancies in the health sector came to the fore. Last year April, drugs worth over E250 000 were reported to be missing at the Raleigh Fitkin Memorial (RFM) Hospital.
The drugs were said to have been received and recorded at the institutions storeroom, but could not be accounted for during a stick verification exercise.
Also, over E2 million worth of medical drugs were allegedly unaccounted for at the Pigg’s Peak Government Hospital. It was gathered that the medical drugs went missing as there were no stock cards, where they had been recorded to have been distributed.
MBABANE – The Ministry of Health is pinning its hopes on the investigations by South African (SA) law enforcers in knowing the source of the stolen medical drugs worth about E800 000.
Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Health Dr Simon Zwane, said they were not even aware of the source of the consignment. He said they trusted that the investigations by the SA law enforcers would assist them.
The PS was responding to a question seeking to establish if the ministry was aware of any truck transporting medical drugs from the country to South Africa. Dr Zwane said this was news to them. It is worth noting that at the height of claims insinuating that there was soaring theft of pharmaceuticals within the public health facilities, the PS said the ministry was oblivious of how stock theft occurred in hospitals and clinics.
Dr Zwane, at the time, said there were controls in place but they were not necessarily strong enough across all facilities.
Meanwhile, as drugs and pharmaceuticals estimated to be about E151.6 million were reported either missing or unaccounted for; the Auditor General (AG), Timothy Matsebula, said the Ministry of Health should investigate this to recover them.
Investigation
The AG, in his proposal for forensic investigation on the notification of suspected irregularities as issued by his office on the acquisition and distribution of medicines to public health facilities, recommended that among other things, the Lizzie Nkosi-led Ministry of Health, should investigate the missing stock and unaccounted for medicines with the aim of recovering and reporting any unrecovered stock to the Losses Committee at the Ministry of Finance. This followed that, among his findings, was that when projected to the population of public health facilities, the total of missing and unaccounted for pharmaceuticals amounted to E151.6 million.