Maputo, 31 Dec (AIM) – The Mozambican Health Ministry has denied any diversion of funds intended for the mitigation of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Administrative Tribunal, the body responsible for checking the legality of public expenditure, last week published an audit report which named the Health Ministry as one of the institutions involved in the diversion of funds.
According to a report carried by the independent television station STV, the Ministry has now retorted that all the financial statements concerning its use of the Covid-19 funds were delivered to the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
The Ministry admitted that it signed contracts with some suppliers without any public tender, but this was justifiable given the emergency situation in some provinces. It admitted that mistakes had been made in this area, but added that all the expenditure had been justified at provincial level.
As for contracts that the Ministry signed without prior inspection by the Administrative Tribunal, it says that six of these, for a total of more than seven million meticais (about 109,000 US dollars, at the current exchange rate) were with media companies, cell phone companies, and shipping agents. It argues that the largest of these, with Mozambican Television (TVM), for three million meticais, did not require prior inspection.
The Tribunal claimed that the Ministry failed to provide documents justifying some nine million meticais of its expenditure. The Ministry replied that 125,880 meticais was used for customs clearance and the handling of containers, while the rest was spent on air freighting vaccines to the provinces.
So far the Health Ministry is the only institution that has responded to the audit. There is no sign of any reaction to the audit from the Education Ministry, or from the National Social Welfare Institute (INAS).
By far the largest share of the supposedly diverted funds – 1.7 billion meticais – was handled by INAS.
(AIM)
Pf/ (316)