AIMA heartbroken over graft allegations

KABUL ministry of violating the contract.

AIMA had been temporally handed over the administration of Afghan-Japan Hospital.  The association took over the administration responsibility of the hospital on the request of the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) for three months of the ongoing solar year — Sawar, Jawza and Saratan — on the basis of an agreement with the ministry.

 According to the agreement, AIMA tasked its administration team and volunteers in the hospital until the end of the agreed tenure.

The renewal of AIMA and MoPH contract was linked with the written agreement of the two bodies. AIMA takes over administration responsibility on April 25, 2020, according to the contract.  The team was introduced by the MoPH services deputy assistant to the hospital.

But AIMA says the health ministry violated the contract signed with them and changed the hospital administration before their tenure is completed and leveled baseless accusations on its volunteer team.

“We hoped the volunteer team and administrative staff should would be praised and offered warm welfare. The new team suddenly arrived and threatened their staff and volunteers and leveled allegations against them,” the association said.

In a statement, AIMA said the sudden revocation of the contract and leveling allegations against volunteers and its staff members would hamper the spirit of volunteer work in the country and people would not willing to work voluntarily.

The statement urged the MoPH to provide opportunity for formal handover of the hospital administration affairs and accused the ministry of violating the agreement by revoking the contract before its formal expiry.

AIMA assured the people of Afghanistan that all the administrative affairs, procumbent affairs and other related activities of the hospital were implemented in line with the existing law of the country and on the basis of contract signed between them and the MoPH.

The fact that official handover ceremony had been postponed, thus AIMA was not responsible for the distortion of documents, devices and equipment.

The statement rejected allegations leveled against AIMA in the media by the new administration team of the Afghan-Japan Hospital.

It added if needed the AIMA would refer to the judiciary regarding the allegations leveled against its team

This comes at a time the Afghan-Japan Hospital new Head Dr. Ahmad Zahir Sultani claimed massive corruption in the medicine, food and oxygen supplies to the hospital.

He had said after taking charge of the hospital, he inspected different sections of the hospital and found massive corruption.

During investigation, Sultani said that proper documents regarding accountability were not available in the hospital.

Similarly, some patients and their visitors also complained against non-availability of medicines and other facilities.

But AIMA in a statement said: “AIMA hoped that with the completion of three-month working period, all the documents and accountability reports would have been handed over to the MoPH but it did not happen.

“The new administration of health ministry introduced new team to the hospital without informing the AIMA team.”

AIMA said the New Health Minister from one side told former head of Afghan-Japan hospital that the new team was dispatched for their support and from another side the security guard of the hospital did not allow the former head Hakimullah Saleh to the hospital.

AIMA said procurement affairs of the hospital had been carried out by the MoPH and the association had nothing to do with them. “This one argument was enough to reject the allegation of corruption leveled against the association.”

Contacts related to oxygen, food and medicine supplies were linked to the ministry and the AIMA team was not involved the procurement affairs.

After the MoPH new leadership took over the charge, the oxygen crisis emerged and the AIMA team registered its complaints in different ministerial authorities to resolve the crisis but the new administration was unable or lacked that capacity to overcome shortages, according to the association.

AIMA conveyed the shortage of oxygen issue to Administrative Affairs of Presidential Palace and during a meeting and its head was asked for help during the crisis. 

According to the association, earlier, only drops and TB medicines were available in the hospital but the AIMA team received other coronavirus related medicines from the ministry and recovered some expired medicines that belonged to the ICU ward of the hospital as well.

The food supply contract was inked by the MoPH with the Inter-Continental Hotel and the quality of food was very low. AIMA team conveyed its complaint to the MoPH often in this regard but the ministry referred the food quality issue to the earlier administrative team of the hospital.

Referring to the use of equipment, AIMA said that all equipment and PPE materials were stored in the main hospital stock and were shifted to a small stock by a particular person who registered the equipment taken out of the stock by hospital staff.

AIMA said that that conduct of the MoPH angered the health society of the country, the spirit for volunteer work that health official possessed was hurt due to the behavior of health ministry. It added the status of AIMA was damaged in the medical society of the country after the health ministry revoked a mutually agreed contract unilaterally.

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