ARUA. The Arua Regional Referral Hospital board has asked the Inspector General of Government (IGG) to investigate alleged mismanagement of funds at the hospital.

This comes at the backdrop of various complaints by some hospital staff and patients about the operations of the hospital.

The board instituted a committee to probe into the complaints, whose report they handed over to the IGG.

Commenting about the report last Friday, the board chairman, Mr Gasper Ezaruku, criticised the hospital management for flouting the procurement procedures, unfair staff recruitment and the missing medical equipment.

According to the report, hospital assets were disposed of without the approval of the board and money spent without their knowledge contrary to the set guidelines.

“We also discovered that the people who bought the assets never paid for bid fees in the bank, the money for the items was also not banked,” said Ms Eunice Munduru, who led the investigations. The committee further discovered that a 175 KVA backup generator, which was supposed to be used by the hospital, is missing together with a welding machine for the orthopaedic unit.

Ms Munduru said the hospital work plan and the budget had never been presented to the hospital management board for approval while Shs253m went missing without the knowledge of the hospital authorities.

“This financial mismanagement needs a competent government agency to help investigate and make a follow up..,” the report reads in part.

A clinical officer at the hospital, who asked not to be named because she is not authorised to talk to the press, said: “The morale is very low among staff and it is worse in the maternity ward because staff allowances are not paid. Every two months we receive drugs but they it does not reach the patients.”

The State Minister for Primary Health Care, Dr Joyce Moriku, who visited the facility recently, said the hospital management needs a forensic audit. She was incensed by the maternal mortality rates and how the maternity was being managed.

Hospital head reacts

“I can’t say anything about what the board has done. It is within their powers, maybe an external investigator will be objective and fair. We shall wait for the IGG to come and we shall cooperate,” Dr Bernard Odu, the hospital director, said.