Bad audit turns donors away

 By ELIZABETH MIAE

POOR management of funds under the Health Services Improvement Programme (HSIP) may have contributed to the withdrawal of donor funding to the health sector, an inquiry was told yesterday.

The inquiry into the programme was conducted by the Public Accounts Committee yesterday. It is the government’s sector wide approach for the health sector.

The 2009 revised trust account provides a mechanism for coordinating financial support managed through the health department and 19 subsidiary accounts managed jointly by the provincial health advisor and the provincial treasurer in each province. 

The inquiry heard that the department did not provide relevant information to the Auditor-General’s Office for it to carry out its audits on the HSIP.

According to acting deputy auditor general Joseph Wak, HSIP audits were done up to 2010 only.

Wak said the audit for 2011 was in progress but they had not received any reports from the department for 2012.

“If the government allocates money and the department doesn’t deliver services it becomes a human rights issue,” committee chairman and Bogia MP John Hickey said. 

“In many instances donors have withdrawn future funds because of pathetic management of the (HSIP) funds.”

According to a recent review of the programme, the trust account balance last May was K127 million of which K102.36 million were government funds, K1.6 million  earmarked pooled funding for provinces and K22.6 million earmarked by donors for particular health programmes. 

“AusAID funds within the HSIP trust account have been effectively frozen pending programme re-design. There are residual funds in most subsidiary accounts that can be rolled over from year to year.

“In 2012-13 a full-scale re-design of the programme has been undertaken as a result of widespread criticisms of incompetence, corruption and failed service delivery.”

The review stated that the department has the challenge of administering the HSIP trust account plus spending its government budget of about K200 million (excluding staff costs).

It said the department has been the subject of highly critical reports by the auditor-general’s office. 

The committee last year found that the department was incapable of accounting for huge amounts of public money, property and stores and of performing simple internal accounting tasks in a lawful or timely manner. 

Hickey directed health secretary, Pascoe Kase to provide the necessary information and reports on the HSIP for auditing to the auditor-general’s office. 

“Do you realise the importance of HSIP and why aren’t they being managed?” Hickey questioned Kase.

Kase replied that the department found it extremely difficult to give money to provincial hospitals that could not manage state money. 

He said the department conducted an annual review of how provincial hospitals performed and rated them. 

He added that managements of non performing hospitals (due to poor acquittals and financial management) were subjected to suspension by the Department of Provincial and Local Government Affairs.