The Deputy Speaker, Thomas Tayebwa tasked the Prime Minister Hon. Robinah Nabbanja to present a statement on the floor of parliament over lack of drugs at health facilities countrywide.
Tayebwa’s directive comes after the health Minister Jane Ruth Aceng contradicted Finance Ministry while explaining the drugs shortage to parliament on Wednesday.
“Hon. Aceng informed legislators that the National Medical Stores (NMS) has failed to distribute drugs to hospitals because of delays in payment of funds. She explained that since July 2022 to date, the Finance Ministry has not provided money for distribution of supplies. To date NMS has not been provided with additional resources to alleviate this challenge. In the second quarter, funds were not available until the first week of November 2022,” ” She said during plenary
Aceng also stated that erosion of available resources resulting from Ebola distribution activities, as well as inadequate budgeting amidst increased distribution costs especially on fuel prices.
However, the Ministry of Finance spokesperson Jim Mudona says out of the 530 billion shillings requested by the NMS, 383 billion was approved between July and January 2023. He says as of January 31st, the NMS still had 66 billion unused money.
“And you can clearly see these balances seated on the account. So even if we had a crisi, assuming 66bn is not enough to cover the crisis in the entire country we should at least be able to handle those areas in much need. We need to stop as Ugandans saying I have drugs but no transport. Plan within these quarters,” he said
The State Minister for Finance, Hon. Henry Musasizi said that NMS is not an exceptional vote to receive funding differently.
“NMS does not want to belong to IFMS. As long as you are a vote, you must comply with the requirements of the Public Finance Management Act,” he noted.
He added that the Ministry of Finance has advised the National Medical Stores to adopt quarterly resource planning and make use of the prepayments and advances functionality on IFMS.
“We have recommended to NMS to use the contracting frameworks that ease medicines transportation,” said Musasizi.
Now the Deputy Speaker has ordered the Prime Minister to convene a meeting today update the house in Parliament.
“If two Ministries do not agree, this should have gone to the Prime Minister. Whereas you are disagreeing and talking about your systems, people are dying because they are being denied essential medicines,” Tayebwa observed.