Kampala — THE National Medical Stores has discovered over 100 non-existent health centres that have for years received drugs and funding from the Government.

As a result, billions of tax payers' money might have disappeared in the pockets of some civil servants who received the funding and the drugs but did not dispatch them.

The fact that the 'ghost' centres were listed by the Ministry of Health suggests a complex racket involving officials right from the ministry headquarters in Kampala down to the districts.

The Ministry of Health has of late been in the news for all the wrong reasons - from absenteeism of health workers at up-country stations to negligence and unprofessional conduct.

Poor patients are left to die because health workers are not there and essential drugs are either lacking or have been stolen. The fact that over 100 ghost health centres were created and maintained for so long calls into question the competence of the ministry's inspection and monitoring divisions.

Ghost health centres means ghost workers. A thorough investigation should be launched covering even the Health Service Commission since health workers are centrally recruited.

Health Centre IIIs have a minimum staff of five. This means there were 500 ghost workers. With each ghost earning an average of sh200,000, this translates into sh100m a month or sh1.2b a year.

With this money, 32 maternity wards or primary school classrooms could have been built.

Ugandan taxpayers continue to lose colossal sums through corruption and outright theft. So pervasive is the vice that some people are beginning to question the principle of paying taxes.

The President needs to act on his policy of zero-tolerance to corruption and sack all civil servants involved in the scam. The time for lecturing and appealing for decency is over. Only deterrent measures can stop the cancer that is eating away our society and killing the poor. These should be applied to all, at the lowest as well as the highest level.