The Sunday News
Vusumuzi Dube Sunday News Reporter
THE Health Services Board (HSB) has for the past nine years spent millions of dollars in hiring costs for luxury vehicles for chief executive officers at the country’s major hospitals, a move that comes at a time when the health sector continues to face a number of challenges that have been worsened by under-funding.Zimbabwe has six central hospitals, Parirenyatwa, Harare, Chitungwiza, Mpilo, Ingutsheni and United Bulawayo Hospitals (UBH). The HSB is responsible for drawing the conditions of service of the CEOs, which include either purchasing or hiring luxury vehicles for them during their course of employment.
However, it has since emerged that the entire lot of CEOs and heads in all the country’s major hospitals have since 2005 been using hired luxury vehicles, inclusive of an undisclosed amount of fuel. The luxury vehicles range from Mercedes Benz to BMWs, which are hired from CMED (Pvt) Limited, at an estimated cost of $7 000 per month.
It is reported that CEOs of Mpilo, UBH and Ingutsheni use Mercedes Benz vehicles while those at Harare, Chitungwiza and Parirenyatwa drive BMW X5 vehicles.
With the six central hospitals, the board between January 2005 and December 2014 is estimated to have paid about $756 000 per hospital, which translates to $4 536 000 for the vehicles. The figure could, however, be much higher if one considers all the other hospitals in the country. Ironically, a state-of-the-art Mercedes costs between $100 000 and $300 000.
HSB spokesperson Mr Nyasha Maravanyika confirmed this development claiming that although, ideally, they would have wanted to purchase vehicles for the CEOs, the country’s current economic conditions did not allow for such. He said the CEOs were like any Government official and according to their conditions of service were meant to get these vehicles for them to fulfil their required duties.
“These hospital CEOs are just like any other senior civil servant and according to the conditions of service, they are meant to get these vehicles. This is a scheme facilitated by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development and this provision has been in place since 2005. The ideal situation is that we purchase vehicles for them but because we get direction from the finance ministry, which has said they cannot afford to purchase currently, we have to resort to hiring the vehicles from CMED,” said Mr Maravanyika.
He said under the current situation the hospitals hired the vehicles from CMED and then forwarded the costs to the finance ministry through the HSB.
“This is something which has been in place since 2005, although I do not have the figure off hand of how much has been channelled towards this facility. You must note that we simply get direction whether we can purchase or hire the vehicles and as it stands, the finance ministry says we would rather hire,” said the HSB spokesperson.
Health and Child Care Minister Dr David Parirenyatwa concurred, noting that these were conditions of service set by the Health Services Board and had nothing to do with the health institutions.
“This is something which we recently attended to with the Health Services Board; this is merely to do with the conditions of service. The CEOs are at par with any senior government officials and honestly, I see nothing wrong with the facility so as to keep the job attractive and allow the CEOs to give satisfactory services,” said Minister Parirenyatwa. The minister allayed fears that this was a case of misplaced priorities, noting that since this was a deal facilitated by arms of Government, it was manageable.
“There is a reason why we are saying they can only hire from CMED and not any other company. This is because since these are two arms within Government’s jurisdiction there can be payment terms that can be drawn to make the facility manageable,” said the minister.
The minister said Government was continuously trying to improve the working conditions of employees in the health sector, noting that the conditions of service were “still not attractive”.
Last year Dr Parirenyatwa clashed with the chairperson of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health and Child Care, Dr Ruth Labode, when the latter reportedly discovered expired drugs at Mpilo, during the committee’s tour of Mpilo, UBH and Ingutsheni.
Dr Parirenyatwa accused Dr Labode of blowing out of proportion the issue of expired drugs at the three Government hospitals in Bulawayo, saying she was aware of the matter as she was once a board member at one of the institutions.
Dr Labode and her committee toured the three health institutions after which she lashed out at the CEO’s for driving Mercedes Benz vehicles hired from CMED and receiving fuel allocations of up to 420 litres a month.UBH’s Mrs Nonhlanhla Ndlovu was singled out for strong criticism as she and her directors were getting cellphone allowances of between $100 and $600 a month.
Mpilo hospital CEO Dr Lawrence Mantiziba was also the subject of a heavy onslaught after it emerged that he had been using a hired vehicle since he joined the institution in 2012. Zimbabwe’s health delivery has over the years taken a knock largely blamed on the country’s tough economic conditions with most health institutions struggling under a low finance base, mostly from minimal budget allocations.
