Members of Parliament on the Health Committee want the National Medical Stores-NMS to account for the Covid-19 vaccine funds allocated to them in the last two financial years.
Led by Apollo Newton Mwesigye, the NMS Board Secretary, Paul Okware the Chief Operations Officer, and Lillian Audo, officials from NMS appeared before the committee on Tuesday to present the entity’s policy statement for the coming financial year 2022/2023.
However, Buikwe South MP Dr. Michael Lulume Bayiga asked them about the expenditure of the 80 billion Shillings appropriated by parliament in the current financial year 2021/2022 towards procurement of Covid-19 vaccines.
He further demanded accountability for another 18.5 Billion Shillings Supplementary budget that was appropriated in the financial year 2019/2020 under NMS towards the response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Okware assured MPs that the money is captured under the entity’s non-wage budget of 572 billion Shillings and that it was spent.
He stressed that both budgets appropriated in the financial year 2019/2020 and 2021/2022 have been received by NMS and spent accordingly.
The Health Committee Chairperson Dr. Charles Ayume then directed NMS to urgently provide MPs with details of how funds related to Covid-19 vaccines have been spent.
