The Management of Mulago Hospital has asked the ministries of Public Service and that of Health to take over investigations into allegations that a number of ghost workers exist on the hospital's payroll.
On Monday, Dr. Edward Ddumba, the Executive Director of Mulago Hospital told journalists at a press conference that the matter has been forwarded to Public service and ministry of health because they are the bodies charged with recruiting personnel for the hospital.
Ddumba pointed out that much as there could have been some weaknessesdetected by the Dr. Nganwa committee, the mistakes were mainly on the payroll. He however said that his staff at the hospital might have delayed sometimes to report cases of staff missing from work.
In August, an internal inquiry was commissioned by the hospital management following a report by the Uganda Radio Network that the national referral hospital has over 300 non-existent workers on its payroll.
Dr. William Nganwa, a senior consultant at the hospital, headed the internal investigations.
The Dr. Nganwa committee that ended its findings in October this year has confirmed the existence of only 64 ghost workers. It added that the earlier media report was exaggerated. It recommended that more investigations be done to find out the true status of the 64 staff.
The committee conducted head counts to establish presence of the entire hospital staffing.
Twenty-two of the workers were found to have absconded from duty while 42 could not be traced in any way even though their names had remained on the payroll, meaning they were still drawing salaries.
Dr. Ddumba said that since the report of the committee, the hospital has strengthened its internal mechanisms of reporting every month. He said that all unverifiable names have also since been deleted.
Ddumba told journalists that he would work with his management team to improve on their attitude towards the media in order to encourage positive reporting of issues at the hospital.
