Tuesday 16 June 2009

Church and State

On Sunday we visited Mabumbu Church, a bush congregation about 25km from Mwandi. The Church is another traditional daub and wattle and thatched affair. We went with Dorothy, the Consistory Chair for the Woman’s Christian Fellowship. Ida was preaching, it was Mothering Sunday and she talked about Women in the Life and Teachings of Jesus (Gen 1:27 & Mark 16:9). She closed by exhorting the men to love their wives as Jesus loves the Church and to encourage and help their wives to participate fully in ministry throughout the Church. This was met by a loud and heartfelt 'AMEN!' - from the women’s side of the Church!

We were invited to lunch in the vestry afterwards. Another traditional building with sacks and buckets of maize stacked around the walls. It had been Harvest Thanksgiving last week and from the amount that has been offered it is clear that there has been a good harvest this year. The meal was village
roasted chicken, kail and inshima, followed by sour-milk, the leftover inshima and sugar mixed together to make a favourite Lozi pudding. It is an acquired taste admittedly but nonetheless we enjoyed wonderful hospitality. We were sent on our way spiritually and physically fed and with the gift of a pumpkin as well.

Such generosity from some the most materially poor of this earth, but some of the richest spiritually.

As regards school the most recent pre-occupation has been the preparations for building the next 1x3 classroomblock for the High School under construction and funded by CEVAA, the French Church. Work should start on that next week, as we will sign the contract with the builder on Wednesday. Through the help of Synod we have procured the cement at factory prices and minus VAT which has helped to reduce our costs.

Last Friday there was the trip to the quarry to order the 30m3 of crushed stones for the foundations and slab. This was paid for with a brick of cash withdrawn from Livingstone the day before. There is not a stone to be found at Mwandi and nothing between Kazungula and Sesheke. The quarry is 87km away from the school and the cost of the fuel to transport the load is twice as much as the cost of the stones! On the other hand builder’s sand is much less of a problem in Mwandi!

The investigations at the Ministry of Health rumble on with more arrests and court appearances. Both the teachers and nurses nationwide have been on strike in a pay dispute. The staff at our Hospital and School continued to work. While they supported the actions of their colleagues in the urban areas because of the greater effect industrial action taken there would have, they felt striking here would only harm our people.

The Hospital itself continues to survive financially by the Grace of God. There has been no Government Grant for the Hospital since April, but by careful stewardship and eking out our meagre resources we have managed to run the hospital, feed our patients and run the ambulance up until now. In these financially straitened circumstances the Hospital is gratefully accepting payment in kind from patients: maize, beans, chickens, etc.

Wednesday 3 June 2009

Theekin Nests and Snouts in Troughs

Recent headlines from both Zambia and Britain have had a depressingly similar ring to them. Politicians and other public servants allegedly stealing or misusing public funds and engaging in activities that enrich themselves at the expense of ordinary citizens.

You’re all probably scunnered by the surfeit of reports of the jougerie-pawkery at Westminster; we are being treated to the spectacle here of operations coming to a standstill this week at Ndeke House – the Ministry of Health. Over 30 civil servants employed by the Ministry of Health have been suspended while a K27 billion scam is investigated, this is seemingly not the only one either, but could be the tip of the iceberg. Charges are expected to include obtaining money by false pretences, abuse of authority and forgery. This all really came to light and the alarm was raised when it became apparent that too many civil servants, public officers and government officials were living at levels far in excess of their earned income and many of the lodges, farms, houses, plots and businesses in the Lusaka area were owned by people working for the Government. Questions were asked how all this wealth was accumulated on modest civil service salaries.

The wonderful thing is that this investigation into matters at the Ministry of Health has apparently been given the go-ahead from the highest level. In the past the culture of plundering and looting by officials and politicians was entrenched and there was little accountability at any level of government, so asking citizens to account for their wealth is a relatively new concept here. The consequences has been to deny millions of needy Zambians access to healthcare which they desperately need but which at the best of times is limited and frankly inadequate.

How has all this affected Mwandi Mission Hospital, then, you may ask? Well, the grant from the Government has fallen from K16m (GBP 2000) in the Halcyon Days of President Mwanawasa to K4.5m (GBP500) for the past 4 months. In December we received nothing – obviously Christmas bonus time for someone somewhere but not for our patients here! We have been told to expect nothing for this month and next month.

The CHAZ (Churches’ Health Association of Zambia) Mission Workers (ancilliaries), paid but not employed by the government, went unpaid from September to February. We learned by investigation that the salary money in January was approved by the Ministry but was ‘diverted’ internally, so it never reached CHAZ – the Mission Hospital's Body. They will not be paid again until this mess is cleared up.

We could not appoint another Doctor in our establishment as the positon for Mwandi was being filled by the notorious Dr Michael Mouse. The Government had officially allocated 11 government Health Worker posts to Mwandi. We ended up with an allocation of three cleaners, two of whom drive our ambulances and the third is our cashier! The payslips for the other eight deployed elsewhere inadvertently arrived at our office.

Another contributing factor to hastening this action may be that Sweden and the Netherlands have frozen funding to the health sector until investigations are concluded. Naturally we have had the usual crocodile tears begging the two countries to reconsider their freezing of financial aid because ordinary Zambians are the ones who will suffer. But ordinary Zambians are likely to continue to do so if funding is resumed without a comprehensive audit being done to ensure those suspected of corruption are prosecuted and safeguards put in place to ensure better governance, accountability and transparency.

Our TB patients, the HIV+ mother and baby, the chronically malnourished children suffering from dysentery and malaria and the lowly paid ancillary staff who attend them, suffering here and elsewhere nationwide deserve no less.