Pinetti must account for Lubowa hospital

When one reads the Auditor General’s report 2023 on the controversial Lubowa International Specialised Hospital enterprise, the impression given is that public funds have gone to unprecedented waste. The reader is rudely awakened to the suspected corruption around this project upon reading that “payments totalling Shs286 billion to the contractors for the hospital was based on unsupported milestone completion certificates”. What this means, and there is more dubious stuff, is that money was paid for probably no work done.

Everybody interested in this evidently phantom project is asking where the money went. An educated guess is that it disappeared down the drain which is personified by the shadowy Italian ‘investor’, Madam Enrica Pinetti. This purported investor must be held accountable for the delays and looming failure associated with this project. Her reported association with the President must not shield her from scrutiny. The money she received belongs to Ugandans who rightly demand accountability.

In the meantime, the saga of the vanishing billions of Lubowa is one which may take years to unravel. There is so much confounding secrecy shrouding this project. How the Finance ministry still keeps a straight face when defending the Shs590 billion they have sunk into this bottomless pit defies logic. Ugandans should back the outrage in Parliament over the lack of progress and the repeated denial of MPs’ constitutional mandate to carry out oversight inspections. No one seems to know why entry is restricted, or why someone is going to great lengths to conceal whatever this project represents.

There are now justifiably loud calls in the House for the project to be terminated. It would appear Uganda may never reap the benefits of what was supposed to be a hospital where mainly non-communicable diseases (NCD) are treated. Which is most unfortunate, especially since our doctors say NCDs are spreading with frightening speed across the population. Cancer is creeping up the ladder to join the leading causes of death in Uganda. Incidence rates for all cancers are 109 and 91 per 100,000 males and females, respectively, according to limited data drawn from Kampala’s population based cancer registry. In truth, no one knows exactly how widespread cancer is in Uganda, because outside of the capital city there is no registry from which to estimate incidence.

Meanwhile, the national cancer institute is starved of resources. For perspective, in last year’s budget, the institute asked for Shs124 billion but only received Shs33 billion. If government continually underfunds such a vital part of the country’s health infrastructure, how can it defend Lubowa which is three years behind the schedule? It cannot, and that is one good reason why Ms Pinetti must be unmasked for who or what she represents. It is time for a reckoning.