Ugandan doctor loses Sh230,000 after betting at ongoing Fifa World Cup
A Ugandan doctor has lost Sh230,000 (7 million Ugandan shillings) money meant for polio vaccine in a bet at the ongoing 2022 Fifa World Cup in Qatar.
Nasser Kerim, a medic at Zeu Health Centre III in Zombo District was reportedly given the money in November 19 to facilitate village health teams (VHTs), local council chairpersons and other health workers in a just concluded door-to-door polio vaccination campaign in the northern Uganda district.
According to the Observer, Kerim was meant to pay about 240 officials who participated in the door-to-door vaccination campaign in Aka sub-county but did not make the payments as expected.
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Mark Bramali, the Zombo district health officer, said upon interrogation, Kerim revealed that he used part of the money to bet in match of the Fifa World Cup.
“As a government official who earns a salary we don’t tolerate an officer who fails to manage a loan. That is not prudent of an officer, then secondly when we probed further we actually found that he betted this money and he was beaten, so he couldn’t raise this money,” Bramali said.
Grace Atim, the Zombo deputy resident district commissioner, said they did task Kerim to refund the funds immediately.
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“Nasser Kerim was trusted with money meant for payment of VHTs and other health workers who conducted the exercise. Unfortunately, he did not pay the health workers and VHTs. And when we interrogated him, he said he used the money for betting which was very unfortunate.”
The Ugandan Ministry of Health rolled out the polio vaccination campaign early last month, targeting children aged 0 to 5 years old, as part of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative supported by the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Rotary International among other partners.
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