By Musa Mdluli

LOBAMBA:Neal Rijikernberg, the Minister of Finance, has tabled the Funduzi Forensic Services follow-up investigation report in Parliament amid shortage of drugs in public hospitals.

The latest report comes after the Parliament Public Accounts Committee (PAC) recommended a follow-up investigation after adopting the Funduzi Forensic Services report, Government commissioned the follow-up investigation as per the Parliament directive.

But this time, the investigation was focusing specifically on recalled drugs, Parliament wanted clarification as to why the Ministry of Health paid but received drugs that were subsequently recalled resulting in the country losing millions of public funds.

Swazipharm and Avarpharm owned by Kareem Ashraff being the leading and main suppliers, dominated the recalls as per records at Central Medical Stores (CMS) under the Ministry of Health.

The tabled report compiled by Funduzi Forensic Services, highlighted that some of the drugs are actually counterfeit or fake as they failed in laboratory testing to reads the minimum required percentage to determine if they were real drugs”. 

But the required standard should be at least 91% concentration and some as per the report, reads as low as 43%.

The report is highly expected to be debated by Parliament and Members of Parliament (MPs) will adopt it if convinced with the findings.

Eswatini, a tiny Kingdom with about 70% of the population living below the poverty line is facing shortage of drugs in public hospitals, dozens have died since the crisis erupted triggered by rampant corruption in the public administration.