Wakiso District medical team has been told to account for funds that were allocated to handle Covid-19 emergency responses in the area.

The Wakiso Resident District Commissioner Justine Mbabazi wants accountability for the inland travel allowances of 70 Million Shillings, 37 Million Shillings for allowances, 22 Million for vehicle maintenance, and 20 Million Shillings.

According to Mbabazi, the required accountabilities must be presented by the medical team at the next sitting of the District Covid Taskforce meeting.

The RDC clarified that the concern on issues of accountability is because the Ministry of Local Government sent the funds to the district purposely to handle Covid emergency response, but they have received information about the people at the vaccination centers soliciting money from the people who turn up for vaccination.    

The demand for accountability also followed a report by the Wakiso District Health Officer, Dr Mathias Lugoloobi, indicating that the district has since received Shillings 323 million which was spent on various activities like district rapid response teams, sample collection, training of laboratory technicians, risk assessment, monitoring and supervision of home-based care as well as data collection and supervision.         

Dr Lugoloobi further indicated that 147 Million Shillings awaits approval from the District Council, while another Shillings 90 million for vaccines.           

According to Dr Lugoloobi, Wakiso District has to date received 435,258 doses which have since been distributed to the 30 vaccination centers across the district.       

He said that while they are at zero balance currently, the district is waiting for feedback from the ministry and that a total of 1021 doses have been wasted, either opened and could not reach the number of people to be vaccinated on that day and passed the number of hours needed or the breakages. They have so far vaccinated 390,000 people.