Cuthbert Dube earned $13 000 a day at PSMAS- MP says

The second fundamental issue, Hon. Speaker is that under what authority did this man draw these salaries and allowances? Did he have the authority of the board? If he did not have the authority of the board, then this is straight forward criminal matter and Dube should be in jail. If it was not authorized by the board, then Dube should be investigated and pursued by the Attorney General and the Prosecutor General.

Thirdly, there is need for the forensic audit to be passed to the Prosecutor General and the police for investigations and prosecution – that has not been done and I ask the question, why has it not been done? This is a public institution, this is a society, where is the transparency? If this kind of thing is being revealed in the media why was it not submitted to the police for prosecution as soon as possible thereafter?

Fourthly, what about recovery of these funds? What are we going to do, this man must have been accumulating assets, maybe he is one of the chefs who is building these giant houses in Borrowdale Brooke. Surely, we have got to go after this man and his colleagues. What should happen in this particular case that this man’s estate and his colleague’s estate should be sequestrated by the state and the assets forfeited to the country – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] –

We need to ask ourselves the question, what is the role of the Minister of Health and Child Care in this affair? I was deeply disturbed to discover that the Minister of Health and Child Care has accepted US$100 000 from Dube; US$70 000 of which was in excess of the actual bill that he was due to pay. Was this a bribe? Was this a consideration to the Minister for not taking action on this matter? I think that in respect to this matter, the Minister of Health and Child Care has got to appear in this House and give us an account of what he was doing. If he cannot properly account for these resources, Hon. Speaker, he must resign – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] – We need to enforce it. The President himself has launched the good governance policies for the public and private sector. It is time that we enforce the rules of good governance in the society and strengthened membership, oversight and control. This situation must not be allowed to continue into the future.

I belong to a medical aid society which is run by the private sector where we use 7% of the total resources of the society as costs. I do not know what proportion of the income of the PSMAS this was, in 2014 we paid them US$140m, here is US$120 million being consumed by 11 people.

Then finally Mr. Speaker, we need to broaden the exercise to cover all Medical Aid Societies, who now represent a US$1 billion a year industry and provide medical cover or the health needs of a million people. If we are going to protect the public interest and the interests of the people who elected us into this House, we need to make sure that they are served by the institutions that are created to look after their welfare. Medical Aid Societies are one of those.

Let us make sure that this is not also happening in other Medical Aid Societies where similar maladministration of public accounts may have become the norm. There is a need for us in this House to be united on this issue. This is not a party political issue but this is a national issue and we need to get rid of this cancer in our society. Thank you very much Mr. Speaker.

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