TIZ urges tighter government monitoring systems

TIZ urges tighter government monitoring systems
By Henry Sinyangwe
Mon 18 June 2012, 13:25 CAT

TRANSPARENCY International Zambia has called on government institutions to strengthen their financial management systems. And Lungu says there is need to also strengthen monitoring mechanisms.

Welcoming the recent resumption of funding by the Swedish government to the Ministry of Health, TIZ executive director, Goodwell Lungu said the health sector was an important institution that delivered hence the need to safeguard resources that save lives.

"Strengthening of the financial management system. This area has also been identified by our research in the health sector, Auditor General's reports, and the Global Fund's Office of the Inspector General. Given that the health sector is one of the sectors where a lot of money is pumped to deliver needed services, history has shown that where there are huge sums of money, corruption and other financial abuses are rife. We therefore propose that this area is strengthened to safeguard the resources that are meant to save lives," said Lungu.

"According to the Global Fund's Office of the Inspector General's report, the audit identified US$4.365 million of unsupported costs, US$1.7 million of ineligible expenditure, and almost US$8 million that could not be accounted for at all."

Lungu said the impact of the freezing of funding to the heath sector was fatal hence the need to put in place strict measures to avoid the reoccurrence of the situation the country found itself in 2009.

"Barely four months after the freezing of funding, the impact, especially in the rural health facilities, was very apparent from the results of our assessment as TIZ. In Mpulungu, for example, a health official revealed that they were unable to deliver the much needed services to the communities due to the withdrawal of funding, they were merely receiving a third of what they used to get in form of grants i.e. K40 million as compared to K120 million. Due to this, they were unable to undertake projects such as TB and HIV/AIDS. In some cases, this resulted in death. This shows that the impact was fatal," Lungu said.

And Lungu said the post contract award monitoring mechanism was so porous that no one followed up on the contractors after being awarded contracts.

"This is one area our research in the health sector and also the system audit undertaken by MOH itself highlights. Some of the scandals revealed that people were awarded contracts but never delivered to MOH," said Lungu.

The Swedish government last Monday released K33.5 billion for the health sector improvement to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

Swedish Ambassador to Zambia Lena Nordstrom said the fight against corruption was an ongoing task and she asked the Ministry of Health to strengthen its accountability structures.

Ambassador Nordstrom said her government was committed to supporting the Zambian health sector following the progress made by the Ministry of Health in recent years to improve accountability and transparency in management of funds.