By AGATHA AYEBAZIBWE

Posted  Saturday, November 3  2012 at  02:00

Kampala

Stolen government drugs repackaged and resold to National Medical Stores

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At least 31 suspects have been arrested in connection with stealing drugs and medical supplies from various government health units and reselling them to government.
According to Dr Diana Atwine, the head of the Presidential Drug Monitoring Unit, most of the arrests were made in the past week.

She, however, lamented that when one of the leaders of the racket Maurice Munguki from Bugiri District, was arrested, he pleaded guilty and was convicted and fined Shs2 million which the drug monitors said was too lenient a punishment to deter other culprits.

“The law favoured him. He has acquired a lot of money by selling government drugs. He tactfully pleaded guilty and was fined only Shs2 million. He is now a free man after paying the fine,” Dr Atwine said.

In what has been seen as a well-organised syndicate of drug suppliers, health workers and brokers of medical supplies, the business has been flourishing as government health units break down.

Saturday Monitor can reveal that it is a syndicate that revolves around prequalified suppliers of the National Medical Stores (NMS), who, working with brokers connive with some health workers especially those in charge of running the laboratories to steal and resell government-purchased medical supplies through brokers to the same health facilities where they should have ended up.

The brokers have warehouses in different parts of Kampala and many of them work closely with some of the companies that are prequalified suppliers of medical supply to NMS.
It is said that after acquiring the supplies, the brokers use chemicals to clean off the stamps and labels that show that the drugs are government property.

They are then repackaged and again sold to NMS.
However, the NMS spokesperson, Mr Dan Kimosho, said when the supplies arrive at the store, they are given batch numbers. So if resupplied, the machines are able to detect that the same item has been entered twice. He said they have not received such a complaint.

He said drugs and other supplies they get have a 75 per cent shelf life. So by the time they are distributed to health centres, bought off and resupplied, they are most likely to be expired, adding that they cannot buy expired drugs. However, most of the items that were recovered such as microscopes, HIV kits, gloves, blood lancets, tubes take long to expire if they do at all.

This racket, Saturday Monitor has learnt has been going on for the last three months mostly in the districts of Tororo and Soroti involving laboratory attendants of Tororo Hospital, Mukuju Health Centre IV, Nagongera Health Centre IV and Mulanda Health Centre IV.

According to Dr Atwine, the most targeted supplies so far remain HIV testing kits, ARVs, microscopes, blood lancets and vacutainer bottles. “These are kept in warehouses from where the labels are removed using a special chemical and then repackaged for sell mostly to the neighboring countries of South Sudan and DR Congo while others are resupplied to NMS,” she said.

Meditech dignostics, a prequalified company by Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets and NMS is one of the companies named in the scam.

The monitoring unit also unmasked another company registered and licensed to supply laboratory equipment for schools. It was found that School Lab Centre had a few laboratory equipment displayed while they were using other rooms to sell ARVS, HIV testing kits and other medical laboratory reagents.

Police at the drug monitoring unit have since been hunting for the proprietor of the centre located on William Street, Kampala who is reportedly on the run. Some of the workers were arrested although Dr Atwine said her team could not give more details since the matter is still under investigation.

Ten people have been remanded pending investigations while four of the lab attendants in the four health centres suspected to have been involved in the crime are still under investigation.

The legal officer at the drug monitoring unit, Mr Brian Luswata, told Saturday Monitor that the suspects will appear at the Magistrates Court in Tororo on November 16. The officers also recovered items worth more than Shs500 million from different warehouses in Wandegeya, Muyenga, and Katwe in Kampala.

Police is also trying to get hold of the telephone numbers of the health workers suspected to be part of the racket. Mr Munguki confessed to having paid them through mobile money.
Now, Dr Atwine wants the two companies named in the scam to be blacklisted and their licences revoked.

aayebazibwe@ug.nationmedia.com

Accessed on Saturday 3 Nov. 2012 from:http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Stolen+government+drugs+repackaged+and+resold+to+NMS/-/688334/1610010/-/gd50cy/-/index.html