Documents before the committee reviewed by Uganda Radio Network- URN, indicate that 511.42 million Shillings was wrongly deducted from the salaries or savings of employees in five regional referral hospitals.
Although the Finance Ministry is seeking Shillings 284 billion to mitigate the corona virus pandemic impact, Shillings 81 billion is going to security while Shillings 62 billion will be channeled to the Health sector, which is at the forefront of combating corona virus.
Parliament has tasked the Finance ministry to explain the current drug crisis experienced by the National Medical Stores NMS despite a 156-billion-Shilling loan approved by the Ninth Parliament. The money was part of a bigger 200-million-Dollar loan that parliament okayed from the Preferential Trade Area Bank, commonly known as the PTA Bank.
David Asiimwe, the Program Officer Ntoroko Concerned Citizens, a local Nongovernmental organisation, says the inadequate provision for the education sector will affect performance of schools in national examinations. Asiimwe explains that children are being taught in dilapidated classrooms and trees.
Dr. Darlington Akusa, a cancer specialist at Arua Regional Referral Hospital, says they are struggling to provide health services to patients due to lack of drugs.
Of the 92.5billion shillings, 17.5billion is to be borrowed from the Arab Bank for Economic Development, 37.5billion from the OPEC Fund for Economic Development and another 37.5billion from the Saudi Fund for Development.
However, before approving the requesting that was contained in the harmonized report of the National Economy committee chaired by Xavier Kyooma, the legislators cautioned government against borrowing issues that can be planned and budgeted for.
Health workers at Kabale regional referral hospital are being accused of soliciting bribes from patients who come for treatment and other services. At the mortuary, relatives of the deceased persons are allegedly made to pay money ranging from 30,000 to 50,000 shillings to have the bodies of their relatives treated.
Parliament on Friday suspended its rules of procedure and hurriedly passed the budget providing a total of 11.4 trillion shillings as government expenditure for the financial year 2012/2013.
Parliament has for the past three weeks been battling with cabinet over an additional 39 billion shillings to the health sector, cutting it from the defence and electoral commission budgets.
The passing of the 2012/2013 budget on Tuesday hit a snag after parliament and cabinet disagreed again on the source of 39.2 billion shillings for health workers.
Fausta Tushabe, a midwife at Lyantonde hospital, said that the water crisis has greatly affected the maternity ward where most of the work depends on water. She said that they have been forced to reduce on the number of the times the ward is cleaned in an effort to utilize the little water available.
