The national medical and healthcare entity is once again on the spot following reports of mismanagement and misappropriation of billions of francs in taxpayers’ funds in botched procurement deals, misplaced spending, negligence and alleged embezzlement.

The 2013/2014 Auditor-General’s Report released recently sheds light on the Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC), which has been under scrutiny over allegations of squandering of public resources on bad procurement deals involving medicines, mosquito nets and other medical implements.

The beleaguered RBC was found to have spent Rwf7.7 billion on substandard mosquito nets since 2012 while another Rwf1.7 billion was used for the purchase drugs which expired in stores before they could be used. Billions of francs more had also been spent on medicines that are reportedly lying idle in warehouses.

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That was the second year in a row that RBC has been faulted for mismanagement by the state auditor. According to the AG, Obadiah Biraro, RBC, through its different bodies, incurred some of the biggest losses in the financial year 2013/14.

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The drug procurement arm of RBC, which is known as Medical Procurement and Production Division (MPPD), was cited for causing a loss to the government amounting to Rwf7.7 billion.

“If you calculated from 2012, Rwf7.7 billion has spent on substandard mosquito nets while Rwf2.2 billion has been spent on substandard drugs which cannot be used at all,” reads the AG’s report. “When we checked the books of account, the stocks difference was Rwf2.4 billion.

“We also found that expired drugs, which need to be disposed with immediate effect, cost the government Rwf1.7 billion. Drugs worth Rwf1.1 billion were destroyed by rain water in a manner that cannot be explained.”

According to the report, RBC recorded unaccounted expenditures of Rwf280 million while a total of Rwf172 million was spent on drugs that went missing from MPPD warehouses, mainly due to lapses in controls over stock management.

Stocks of medicines which are not being used were found to be redundant in RBC stores despite shortages of medicine in public hospitals.

Recurring mistakes

The chairman of the Public Accounts Committee of parliament, Juvenal Nkusi, described the losses incurred by RBC as “shocking” and said the government should hold to account the people responsible for the wastage of taxpayers’ money.

“We cannot sit back and watch as this is happening,” said Mr Nkusi. “People should be answerable because these issues keep coming up every year and no action is taken to salvage taxpayers’ money.

“The necessary reforms should be made in RBC.”

Last year, RBC was faulted for squandering public resources on drugs which are later not used, ending up expiring in stores.

Additionally, the AG revealed that government spent about Rwf1.5 billon on procuring bio-medical waste incinerators in a bid to effectively and safely dispose of toxic substances that may be harmful to human health, including expired drugs, but the incinerators are yet to be put to full use.

The AG noted that the six incinerators supplied were of poor quality and have either not been used, have broken down or are emitting toxic smoke. The faulty incinerators were found at Mageragere, King Faisal Hospital Rwanda, University Teaching Hospital of Butare (CHUB), Kabaya, Munini, Kibirizi and Ntongwe hospitals.

The report also faulted RBC for failing to see through contracts with suppliers or service providers, noting a total of Rwf112 million in delayed contracts.

The Ministry of Health has been in the spotlight over the embarrassing mosquito supply deal which went wrong, resulting in the government spending Rwf10.5 billion on 3 million substandard mosquito nets.

Minister for Health Dr Agnes Binagwaho revealed that the government would take legal action against Danish company Net Protect which supplied the nets. The head of Rwanda Health Communication Centre at RBC, Nathan Mugume, confirmed that the ministry was following due process and would ensure there was no more wastage.

“We took note of the issues raised by the Auditor-General,” said Mr Mugume. “An internal audit done before the OAG’s had already revealed these concerns and we had set out to mitigate them.”

Noting that some of the causes of wastage were unavoidable, such as floods, he added that RBC has built a state-of-the-art storage facility in the Kigali Special Economic Zone. RBC used to rent private warehouses to keep drugs.

According to the chairperson of Transparency International - Rwanda Chapter Marie Immacullee Ingabire, the anti-graft watchdog had taken note of the mismanagement in RBC and called on the government to take action on individuals who are behind these losses.

“Highlighting these losses alone is not enough,” Ms Ingabire told Rwanda Today. “People should be made answerable and where possible the funds lost in such careless practices recovered.”