Medicines thefts deliberately ignored – Nyasulu
By Tony Nkhoma
DISREGARD for the digitisation of the drug supply chain is the source of drug thefts, former Zambia Medicines and Medical Supplies Agency (ZAMMSA) director general Victor Nyasulu has said.
And Nyasulu says the state of governance at ZAMMSA is chaotic because of political interference and could not address the much needed and noted technical bankruptcy.
Nyasulu said the sabotage of ZAMMSA by the Ministry of Health officials is an attempt to get the back the procurement process to the Ministry and not any other
Speaking when he featured on Hot FM Radio on Tuesday, Nyasulu said technology existed to protect the drugs but it was ignored because there was a long list of beneficiaries of drug thefts.
He said the inaction from government through the Ministry of Health and all efforts to have part of funded money to put closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras in all dug supply channels proved futile.
“We made the case and we were given money. We were given treasury authority that each time the US$200 million comes, we can use eight per cent of that in order to run ZAMMSA properly, to buy CCTV cameras, to put gadgets in the vehicles, to do all those kinds of things. But the Minister of Health, then Sylvia Masebo, was unhappy because she claimed I hadn’t consulted her,” Nyasulu said.
He said United States (US) Ambassador to Zambia Michael Gonzales’s announcement of the decision to cut aid to the Ministry of Health followed government inaction on drug thefts despite meetings for 33 times.
Nyasulu said lack of visibility when medicine were dropped from ZAMMSA at the health facility remained a black box which he said should be dealt with to curb drug theft.
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He said he was going to court not for drug theft but discuss the procurement glitches related to giving business to local companies.
He said he was sacrificed as ZAMMSA director general and upon realising that he refused to do what was not right.
“Of course, whatever was right and makes sense, I did. And when she realised that I was not going to do exactly as she wanted, she basically sabotaged me because after she cancelled the money, I was going to her office every two weeks to ask for the money and she didn’t give it,” Nyasulu said.
He said when somebody went to Masebo and lied that he was trying to steal 61 containers, she thought that was the chance because the nation needed to know that earlier in May she called him from Switzerland saying he should resign.
Nyasulu said a scheme to sacrifice him into the drug theft further escalated when one of the special assistants to President Hakainde Hichilema was also lied to that he [Nyasulu] had given a US$15 million contract to someone who they thought was a member of the Patriotic Front (PF).
“Why? Because I gave a contract to someone who they thought was PF. And somebody lied through the presidential aide. Lied that we had given a contract of US$15 million,” he said.
The US government has cut funding to the Ministry of Health for essential medicines and medical supplies by K1.4 million (US$50 million) citing the failure by the Zambian government to stop the organised and systematic theft of the materials and punish the masterminds despite repeated reminders.
