Health official suspended, says Kase

By REBECCA KUKU
HEALTH Department corporate manager Paul Dopsie has been suspended pending police investigations into bribery claims during a Public Accounts Committee inquiry into the procurement, supply and distribution of medicine.
Health secretary Pascoe Kase confirmed the disciplinary action yesterday, saying it was part of the public service system. He said the process was ongoing.
Dopsie was suspended on Dec 2, after the managing director of Global Customs and Forwarding Ltd Harupa Peke told the Public Accounts Committee inquiry that on Sept 29, 2016, Dopsie had called him and demanded K70,000 to be paid to him before the company could receive what it was owed for the medicine it supplied.
Peke told the inquiry that he was getting fed up with the demand for money by Dopsie, who he had paid bribes to several times. Peke claimed he had paid K100,000 in total.
Peke also said he was also threatened to withdraw a letter of complaint he had written to the Health secretary in May 2017 about Dopsie after several instances of delays in payment.
Kase told The National yesterday that the department would be working with the police in implementing the recommendations of the Public Accounts Committee which instituted the inquiry.
Police Commissioner David Manning and the Health Department will hold a media conference today to announce “what we will be doing, going forward”.
The inquiry will resume on Feb 5, 2020, according to committee chairman Sir John Pundari.