Do better than NMS, Kasaija tells Joint Medical Stores

Kampala. The Minister of Finance, Mr Matia Kasaija, has urged Joint Medical Stores (JMS) to work hard and out compete the National Medical Stores (NMS), accusing the latter of incompetence as a result of fraud.

Created by the Act of Parliament, NMS procures stores and distributes essential medicines and medical supplies to all public health facilities while JMS, co-owned by the Uganda Catholic and Protestant medical bureaus, perform the same role for private health facilities.

“Thank you JMS for being exemplary… You know we have another organisation which brings in medicine for the government; National Medical Stores (NMS) based in Entebbe. I want you to give those people a run for their money, and I will give you all the support to make sure you make them run,” Mr Kasaija said recently.

The minister was speaking at JMS headquarters in Nsambya, Makindye Division, Kampala, during the opening of Prof Alexander Mwa Odonga Warehouse, a facility named after Uganda’s first surgeon who succumbed to heart failure in August 2016.
Mr Kasaija said NMS accused him of not giving them [NMS] money.

“When I gave them money, the money is not accounted for. So help me teach them how to do business,” he said.
The Finance minister’s statement seemed to be in reference to the PTA Bank loan scandal last year that created a rift between the two parties over the Shs150 billion which was part of the Shs700b loan sourced to avert a crisis arising from a Shs68b shortfall in the NMS budget.

The medical stores, however, complained to President Museveni that the funds that were transferred to the ministry through Bank of Uganda had not reached them six months after their release from PTA Bank under unclear circumstances.
Acting on a tip-off from NMS, the President and lawmakers asked ministry of Finance officials to account for the millions of dollars.

When contacted to clarify about his statement, Mr Kasaija said NMS ought to have a competitor if they are to improve their efficiency, denying that it had anything to do with the PTA funds because NMS was not the only beneficiary.

“There is room for improvement, check with medical facilities where they supply medicine. They will tell you,” Mr Kasaija said in a telephone interview with Daily Monitor yesterday.

When contacted, Mr Dan Kimosho, the NMS spokesperson, said they were ahead of JMS, adding that he did not understand what the minister meant since the two distributors handled totally different categories of clients.

“Most likely they [JMS] should learn lessons from us…If you look at the infrastructure, coverage in terms of facilities, budget and warehouse, we are far ahead of them [JMS]…I think the minister was speaking from a point of anger [accruing from the PTA funds] but we have since moved on,” Mr Kimosho said by telephone.

He also said many African countries come to Uganda “to learn from us [NMS]”. “In Africa, we are the best in vaccine cold chain management and we have received awards by Gavi [Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation] and Unicef [United Nations Children’s Fund] twice,” Mr Kimosho added.

The company has on several occasions been on spot over countrywide concern of people dying of treatable diseases due to failure to deliver drugs, allegations it denies.

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