Doctors working abroad on Abim payroll — report

ABIM. State House’s health monitoring unit has unearthed a racket of ghost workers in Abim District earning millions of shillings in the last three years.

Findings have revealed that at least 30 per cent of the health workers in the district are ‘’ghosts’’.

The team led by Dr Juliana Nabatanzi, the deputy director of State House health monitoring unit, has been in the district for more than two weeks to investigate reports of rampant deaths of expectant mothers and their babies in Abim Hospital.

According to Dr Nabatanzi, the ghost workers have been earning Shs700,000 per month and hard-to-reach allowance of 30 per cent of their salary yet they have never made physical appearances at work for the last three years.

At Katabok Health Centre II in Morulem Sub-county, the team discovered that a cleaner at the health unit was working as a pharmacist, clinical officer and nursing officer yet there are nine staff members recruited to work at the facility, who never appeared at work but continued earning salaries.

Dr Nabatanzi said her team discovered most of the health staff were working abroad in Canada, South Sudan and Central African Republic but still continued to get salaries in Abim District.

“This is unacceptable. The CAO (chief administrative officer) and his human resource officer should be in position to explain why they have continued paying ghost staff all that time,” she said.

She added that her team will ensure that all the ghost staff are removed from the payroll to avoid further losses to the government.

Mr Emmanuel Ofono, the Abim District CAO, said he was not in position to comment on State House findings since he is out of office for treatment.

“I have been down suffering from Typhoid for long and I have not been in office. I can’t comment on the findings of the State House health monitoring unit,” he said.

Mr Jimmy Akileng, the district human resource officer, told Daily Monitor that the said people are on study leave.
“What State House health monitoring team calls ghosts are people who went for their studies and the district is aware about it. There are 142 health workers in the district,” he said.

Abim District has 20 health centres of which five are health centre IIIs while the 15 are health centre IIs with one district hospital serving a population of 110,000.

CORRUPTION IN THE DISTRICT
Abim District has tasted bitter negative publicity in the recent time, with a string of corruption cases implicating the district leaders. The lid was blown off ahead of the 2016 presidential elections when the four time presidential candidate, Dr Kizza Besigye, visited the hospital and found it in a deplorable state.

The Electoral Commission moved in swiftly and banned all opposition presidential candidates from visiting public schools and health facilities during the campaigns, while Museveni who was a candidate at the time had unfettered access to all the facilities.

Shortly after that, government released about Shs700m to kick start the renovation of the hospital, with more funds released in subsequent months.

[email protected]