General News of Thursday, 29 January 2015

Source: starrfmonline.com

K’bu is a “huge crazy monster” – Akosa

“It is a hospital that is supposed to make people better, but the practices that go on in Korle Bu will not make the account better, will not make revenue better, will not make anything better, and in the same vein, will not make a lot of the patients who come there better,” the former flagbearer-aspirant of the Convention People’s Party (CPP) told Ibrahim Alhassan.

“It’s a human institution and people who do not have the professional etiquette walk the corridors of Korle Bu and make life in Korle Bu rather difficult,” the pathologist added.

A swirl of corruption allegations have swirled around Africa’s third biggest referral health post in the past years, a situation, which invariably leads to the dissolution of each Board and Management.

In the middle of 2014, controversy erupted for the umpteenth time after the senior staff association of the hospital accused the Board and Management of buying nine luxury cars for themselves with internally-generated funds.

The President subsequently dissolved the Board. The latest controversy, according to reports by Joy News has to do with a forensic audit (2010 – 2014) into the operations of the pharmacy department of the hospital, which revealed that GHC946,574.29 has been misappropriated through bad procurement processes and collusion by suppliers.

According to the reports, in 2010, GHC245 193 was misappropriated; in 2011, GHC275 287.85; in 2012, GHC146 269.54; in 2013, GHC208 504.43, and in last year, GHC71,319.14.

According to the audit reports, Ernest Chemists Ghana Ltd, a pharmaceutical company and supplier of drugs to the hospital has been asked to return GHC21,000 which the report found to have been illegally paid.

The report made 44 recommendations and asked for a strict adherence to the Public Procurement Law.