Civil society fault ministry on destroying expired drugs

The Civil Society Budget Advocacy Group (CSBAG), has queried the ministry of Health’s recent decision to destroy over 1,200 tonnes of drugs countrywide.

Julius Mukunda, director CSBAG, said this was wastage of public resources due to poor planning.

While many would think the move by ministry to destroy the expired and unwanted drugs in order to create space for adequate storage of medicines is a necessary deed, civil society budget advocacy group disagrees, sighting loopholes that should not be left unfilled.

This follows the Auditor general’s report on the National Medical Stores which showed that drug items worth Shs 3.5 billion remained undistributed to 649 health centres in financial year 2016/2017.

Mukunda Julius, the director CSBAG said the ministry of Health should give proper accountability on the drugs to be disposed off, the cost implication and reasons why Uganda is disposing off drugs yet there are drug stock outs country wide.

CSBAG said they want a response from the ministry before the end of next week.

The ministry declined to speak about the civil society concerns.

Fredrick  Ssekyana  the public relations officer at National Drug Authority, said it was not within the jurisdiction of the authority to quantify what and how much drugs should be distributed rather their main concern is quality.

***Victoria Bagaya