Health sector civil servants to declare personal dispensaries,

he Minister for Health, Social Welfare, Gender, Elderly and Children�s Affairs Ummy Mwalimu

 Government employees in the health sector who own dispensaries, pharmacies and other health facilities 21 days to declare them in writing. In the same vein, the head of Ocean Road Cancer Institute (ORCI) has been suspended.

 

In a statement issued yesterday, the Minister for Health, Social Welfare, Gender, Elderly and Children’s Affairs Ummy Mwalimu said the move is part of ongoing efforts to unearth conflicts of interest in the sector and curb swindling of medicines and medical equipment from government facilities

“Based on issues related to conflict of interest and mounting complains over the quality of service at the Ocean Road Cancer Institute, I have decided to suspend the Acting Director of the institute Dr Diwani Msemo to pave way for investigation on whether there are indeed issues of conflict of interest and if the same had affected the performance of the institute under his leadership,” the statement reads.

 

 Further, the declaration seeks to prove or disprove the strong feeling that most of the health facilities and drug stores in the country are owned directly or through proxies by employees of the health sector, making it easy for them to supply their second offices with supplies from the public facilities.

 

“It is obvious that this ownership by public servants raises the question of a conflict of interest. President John Magufuli has spoken about this on several occasions, especially the fact that there inadequate supplies in public facilities yet private ones are fully stocked all the time,” the statement reads in part.

 

 “There is no viable reason for the delay...the council must now ensure it provides the service within 60 days in accordance to the law,” he ordered.

“Many foreign investors have decided to stop investing in Tanzania and this is due to ongoing tendency by government officials failing to do their jobs as required,” he noted.

 

 According to him, in an Easy of Doing Business 2015 report published by World Bank, Tanzania ranks near the bottom (146 of 186) of list of countries with a friendly investment condition.