Members of the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee yesterday ordered for immediate arrest of Lira Hospital’s Accounting Officer, Simon Odupe for misuse of the hospital’s funds.
The hospital accounts books showed that Odupe spent Shs30m on installing wireless Internet network – Wi-Fi – at the regional referral hospital wards yet the money was supposed to clear tuition fees of medical staff that were meant to go for further studies.
Deputy Head of Public Accounts committee, Hon. Gerald Karuhanga who led other MPs on a field visit of the hospital was surprised that the said WI-FI was not even actually bought as the books showed.
“There are many other priorities like stocking hospital drugs and improving the staff welfare than WI-FI,” said Karuhanga.
Karuhanga added that the committee has for so long been writing to Odupe requesting him to produce all the hospital accountabilities since 2014 but he did not bother to respond. Odupe and his department also failed to account for this year’s Shs800m that was allocated by government to Lira Hospital and he did not have clear clarification on how and where he put Shs106m in the 2014-2015 financial year.
