300 ghost workers on Mulago payroll

Close to 300 ghost workers have been discovered on the payroll of Mulago National Referral Hospital, according to preliminary information from an ongoing investigation into corruption in the health sector.

Investigators attached to the Medicine and Health Services Delivery Monitoring Unit, which was set up by President Museveni in October last year to scrutinise operations in the health sector, confirm that they have already confirmed a total of 289 ghost workers – even as they continue to sift through documents to ascertain the magnitude of graft in the country’s largest hospital.

Not alive
Sources close to the investigations indicate that the ghosts found on the payroll include the former head of the Heart Institute, Dr Morris Rutakingirwa, who died six years ago; Phillip Kobizaaba, a motor vehicle attendant who died in 2007; and Francis Maragari, a mortuary attendant who also died but still has a salary being drawn against his name.

Other prominent cases identified by the investigation team include retired and transferred officers who still have their names on the hospital payroll.
Such officials include Margaret Mugenyi, a nursing officer who retired in 2006, Dr James Kisambira, an orthopaedic technologist who was sacked in 2008 and Alfred Okethwengu, an accounts assistant who was transferred to the ministry of health in 2005 but whose name still appears on the hospital payroll.

Investigators suspect Mr Okethwengu could either have been drawing two salaries within the same ministry for the last five years or other officials continued to draw salary in his name.

Most of the ghost workers, according to the investigations, could have been receiving salaries for up to the last 10 years. The findings stem from an impromptu and physical head count of all staff working at the hospital in June this year. The counting was done at every department in the hospital and their results are still under wraps at the Medicine and Health Services Delivery Monitoring Unit.

The head of the unit, Dr Diana Atwine, said she cannot discuss details of her team’s investigations at Mulago Hospital but confirmed that her unit recently ordered a headcount of all staff.

Documents scrutinised
The investigation team is reportedly scrutinising staff documents with intent to compare details on the payroll and the Ministry of Finance as well as bank details of staff salaries.

It has so far been detected that workers who died six years ago are still on the list of staff at the hospital, while some of those who retired or who had been transferred were by March this year still drawing salaries.

Documents obtained during investigations reveal a deliberate attempt to update names and account details of the dead and retired workers on the payroll, as well as maintaining those who have been transferred to other departments.

At least 66 workers have also been questioned by the Criminal Investigations Department over possible complicity in maintaining ghosts on the payroll.
One of those questioned, but who cannot be named for legal reasons, holds an official account for her salary at Centenary Bank but recently learnt that her second salary account is operated through a second bank, with bank details showing the same name, photo but different computer numbers.

At Mulago Hospital, a number of senior staff working in the personnel and accounts departments have either asked to be transferred to other ministries or absconded from work.

Those who have either been transferred or asked for transfer include the principal accountant, Mr Elly Asiko and the head of personnel, Mr Steven Okiror.

One of those who left work on his own is retired Senior Personnel Officer, Mr Samuel Muwanguzi. The latest discovery comes more than a month after Dr Atwine revealed that the unit had bust a local and cross-border racket, in which unscrupulous health officials signed off drugs to be delivered to ghost health centres.

“In Kampala alone, we found that there are over 10 ghost health centres that were getting drugs and money but they do not exist,” she said on June 29.
She said they have set up a toll-free hotline, 0800100447, for people to report suspected corrupt health officials.