By Mohamed Vandi in Kenema
The coordinator of the District Emergency Ebola Response team in Bo, Sahr Foyor, has made allegations of fraud and incorrectness in the payment of Ebola risk allowances to emergency health workers in Bo.
He said a lot was wrong in the payment of health workers, adding that he was presently working with other stakeholders to get to the root of the problem.
Foyor told Politico that he had forwarded 54 names of non-medical staff upon the instruction of NERC. But, he added, over 130 names appeared for on the risk allowance list which came out weeks later.
He revealed that there were several duplicated names on the payment
list which, he said, was quite different from the original list he had prepared and sent to Freetown. He said he could not tell where or how the additional names had come about.
He said the duplicated list, which was presently in Politico’s possession, had the names of Expatriate and non-governmental organization workers who should not be entitle to payment of risk allowances.
“We the medical staff are not entitled to risk allowances because we
are paid by our respective agencies,’’ Foyor clarified. He said even he was astonished when a lot of other names, including his, appeared on the list for payment.
He pointed out that the payment issue was already causing a lot of problems amongst health workers because it was not decentralized.
The district Ebola coordinator stated that he had on several occasions suggested that the payment of health workers should be done by the Finance officers of the various hospitals.
“That will bring sanity into the payment system as the officers on the ground know their workers and can easily identify them,” he argued.
Also on the payment list was the name of the district medical officer, Dr. Alhaji Sani Turay, which was duplicated first as a supervision of burial team with pin code 120780 and then as a community care with pin code 1000. It also held the names of white expatriates, all in duplicates.
When spoken to, Dr. Turay admitted to Politico that there were indeed duplication of names on the list but he denied responsibility for it.
“I don’t know who did the duplications because the list we sent is
quite different from the one in question,’’ he said.
He however admitted to have received risk allowances for November and December for the work of a supervisor of the district burial team.
Several other health workers who have been paid have threatened to
undertake a strike action soon.
© Politico 10/02/15
