Govt recruits 11 to manage
MANZINI – Government has recruited 11 people, who are not in the civil service, to manage the Central Medical Stores (CMS) in the interim.
The recruitment of the task team to manage the operations of the CMS follows that 11 employees of the Ministry of Health’s department were suspended.
The 11 people were suspended to make way for a forensic audit, which was a recommendation by the Auditor *eneral A* , Timothy Matsebula. The A* had, following his investigation, recommended that among other things, the /izzie 1kosi led Ministry of Health should investigate the missing stock and unaccounted for medicines, with the aim of recovering and report any unrecovered stock to the /oss es Committee in the Ministry of Finance.
Facilities
This followed that, among his find ings, Matsebula reported that when proMected to the population of public health facilities, the total of missing and unaccounted for pharmaceuticals amounted to E151.6 million.
He also reported that during the investigation, he observed that there was missing stock of medicines and or unaccounted for pharmaceuticals, amounting to E18 793 823.99 in the fiscal years ended March 31, 2021 and 2022.
His findings were that there was missing stock of medical drugs amounting to E5 977 042.11, which was made up of E5 848 589.89 in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2022 and E128 452.22 in the fiscal year March 31, 2021, as reported in the trading account.
It was said his findings further detailed that the financial statement disclosed the missing stock as a difference between physical count by the CMS and *overnment Ac counting System.
Matsebula was said to have ob served that pharmaceuticals amount ing E12 812 281.28, which were acquired during the financial years 2020 2021 and 2021 2022, were not accounted for.
These pharmaceuticals, it was said, were either not recorded in stock record cards had no stock cards to record the medicines on the stock card balances and phys ical count balances were not tal lying and there were shortages in stock received.
He said when proMected to the pop ulation of public health facilities, the total of missing and unaccounted for