Donors have lost confidence in Rupiah - HH

COMMENT - The Zambian government in 2004 had a $1.1 billion in revenues. Please tell me they can get together $26 million to replace this donor funding. The ministry of Technology and Vocational Training has a budget of $23 million. There are 29 ministries in total. And why have deconcentration, instead of just decentralisation. There is a lot of duplication of work being done. Just tax the mines.

Donors have lost confidence in Rupiah - HH
Written by George Chellah, Mutuna Chanda and Chiwoyu Sinyangwe
Wednesday, May 27, 2009 1:55:03 AM

UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema on Tuesday said the freezing of funding to the Ministry of Health is a sign that donors have generally lost confidence in President Rupiah Banda's administration to manage public funds prudently. And former Chingola District director of health Dr Joseph Katema said it is criminal for donors to continue funding health programmes in Zambia when funds are not being properly accounted for.

In an interview, Hichilema described the freezing of financial aid to the Ministry of Health by the Swedish and Dutch governments as a diplomatic show of overall displeasure with the government's handling of public funds.

"Basically, that's a clear indication of no confidence in the MMD government by the donors. The specific reference to the Ministry of Health K10 billion scam is just a diplomatic example," Hichilema said.

"It means that the donors overall have lost confidence in the capability of this MMD government to manage public funds prudently and also to set priorities. The purchase of hearses for example, mobile hospitals all these have to do with the health sector."

He accused the government of failing to manage public affairs transparently.

"This is a real indictment to the MMD government and their failures. This is a confirmation of what we have been telling the people of Zambia about this greedy and self-centred and corrupt government," Hichilema said.

"We are now seeing a situation where the people of Zambia have to pay the high price. The people who are already distressed, the poor people out there who need support of the donors in the health sector... the health sector is funded largely by donors, you have to understand, this is how the donors react."

Hichilema insisted that there was no doubt that the donor community had lost confidence in President Banda's government due to numerous scandals.

"Without doubt, the loss of confidence has been culminated by a number of misuse of public funds. If you look at the scandals... there is a substantial number of abuses of funds," Hichilema said.

"What you see when you look at the Ministry of Health case, it's a tip of the ice-berg because the ice-berg floats and only a small piece is on top with the rest huge chunk is under the water."

And Dr Katema, who is also Patriotic Front (PF) Chingola member of parliament, said there was a lot of conspiracy in the abuse of public funds and that the K10 billion scam recently unearthed at the Ministry of Health which prompted the two donors to suspend funding was just the last straw.

"This year the Ministry of Health has refused to publish how much money is being sent to districts," he noted. "Every year the government publishes what they send to the districts but for this year they have not published that and then they have been sending a third of the money that Parliament appropriated and I understand that this month they are supposed to send a quarter; 25 per cent. Where is the money going? Where's the remainder, which Parliament appropriated? I wonder if it is going to mobile hospitals."

Dr Katema said that 25 per cent, which the government intended to release to the district health teams this month would only be enough for administrative costs.

"I have run a district before and 25 per cent would only go to feeding patients and paying for electricity and other administrative costs," he said.

Dr Katema said public health programmes had been completely paralysed resulting from the government's failure to send money to the districts.

"Let them come out truthfully and explain to the people why they are not sending money," he said. "All public health programmes are paralysed. Government has to explain to the people why they are not funding the districts. If it has anything to do with the donors, they must tell the donors that they will stop that which is making donors withdraw their funds."

Dr Katema expressed dismay at the government's approach towards the two donors' suspension of aid to the health sector.

"We are concerned about the non-concern on the part of government on withdrawal by cooperating partners, I have worked with the Dutch government when I was in the Ministry of Health," he said.

"When you ask for money for vaccination for under-five children, they don't expect any deviation because to them a deviation means that you don't know what to do."

Dr Katema wondered what would happen to the rural retention scheme in which the Dutch government supplemented medical doctors' pay.

"The Dutch in particular run the medical retention health scheme in rural areas, what will happen to them [medical doctors] who are literally there because the Dutch are supplementing their salaries?" wondered Dr Katema.

"This year we were told they were going to scale down to tutors, laboratory technicians, radio technicians and nurses in rural areas. What will happen to that programme since that was donor driven?"

Dr Katema urged those who were calling for donors to rescind their decision on suspending funding to the Ministry of Health to ask government to address the cooperating partners' concerns.

And Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairperson Charles Milupi disclosed that Ministry of Health would plunge into a 40 per cent financing deficit this year due to the announced suspension of financial aid by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and the Dutch government following revelations of a scam involving about K10 billion [about US $2 million].

Milupi, who is also Luena Independent member of parliament, told selected African journalists attending an Investment Climate Facility for Africa (ICF) and Thomson Reuters Foundation joint training seminar that corruption in the country was on the increase although the index indicated a slump on the vice.

"The corruption index has shown that corruption has gone down but I think the corruption which is there in the country is more vicious, when you look at these things like the RP Capital issues, [importation of Genetically Modified Maize] GMO, mobile clinics and so forth it is a lot more vicious. So, we shouldn't say that because the corruption index has gone down we must relax. I think we need to keep up the pressure," he said.

Milupi said the recent scam at the Ministry of Health was not surprising as the ministry had continued to exhibit high levels of lack of accountability as consistently noted in reports from the Auditor General.

Milupi, who said the donors should not be blamed for withdrawing funding to the Ministry of Health, observed that the recent development would hurt the poorest in the country. He said the government system of stopping corruption had collapsed.

"If you look at Ministry of Health, the Dutch have withdrawn 13 million Euros [about K92 billion] and Sweden have withheld about K59 billion, according to the reports in The Post. ...Where are our systems," wondered Milupi.

"Being chairman of PAC since 2006, I have said the Ministry of Health every year, we have highlighted very serious issues at Ministry of Health. Now those amounts that are being announced by Sweden and Holland amounts to K120 billion, the total budget of the Ministry of Health for this year is about K300 billion. So 40 per cent of the total budget is at risk and it is the poor person on the street who is going to feel it."

The Dutch government last week Thursday announced that it had suspended aid to Zambia's health sector following corruption allegations in the Ministry of Health.

The Netherlands contributes about 13 million Euros [about K92 billion] annually for the funding of rural health care provision, the prevention of malaria, tuberculosis and HIV, and the training of medical staff in Zambia.

The decision by the Netherlands government to suspend aid follows the move by Sida to stop its planned release of funds [about K59 billion] to the Ministry of Health following the alleged K10 billion scam unearthed by the ACC.

Recently, the ACC unearthed a corruption scam in which over K10 billion government funds were alleged to have been corruptly obtained from the Ministry of Health by some public servants.