IRS: Adjumani spray operators protest delayed payment of allowances
ADJUMANI: Spray operators and team leaders contracted on behalf of the Ministry of Health by Adjumani district local government to implement the indoor residual spraying [ IRS ] in the area have protested the delayed payments of their training allowances.
This reporter has established that 60 spray operators and 15 team leaders including village mobilisers are demanding the district local government Shs 8.7 million with each worker entitled to Shs 110,000 for five days of training.
Bernard Ayimani who is the team leader of the aggrieved contracted workers for the IRS urged the district authorities to pay their allowances before they proceed with the work as planned.
“We need the training allowance and appointment letter to say that we have been contracted to do this work,” Ayimani said.
Alice Baatiyo, one of the women employed to do the IRS in Adjumani town council expressed disappointment, saying all their colleagues in other sub-counties have been paid but only the spray operators of Adjumani town council have been left out.
Meanwhile, the district health officer, Dr. Drametu Dominic said his office completed all the steps for payment, even though he blamed the delayed payment of allowances on the integrated financial management system[IFMS], which he said has a technical glitch.
“Am appealing to you to resume work as my office makes up a follow-up to expedite the payment because your money is already in the pipeline,” Dr. Drametu told the rowdy youth who seemed to not believe what the official was saying.
The chief administrative officer of Adjumani, Grandfield Oryono Omonda acknowledged the delay attributing it to an unnecessary breakdown in the IFMS system leading to the delay in payment.
The IRS programme, which targets all the districts in West Nile officially started on November 7, 2022, and is scheduled to run for 25 days.
About 90.000 houses including commercial buildings have been mapped to be sprayed during the IRS operation.
The ministry of health has set aside US$ 26mln [Shs 93 billion] for the programme to fight infective female Anopheles mosquitoes that transmit malaria as they suck the blood out of the bodies of human beings.
West Nile has a high malaria transmission with 80 percent of people with fever testing positive, 50 percent of all out-patient attendees being due to malaria, 25 percent of all in-patients, and 15 percent of all deaths.
According to the district health office in Adjumani district, malaria still was among the top 10 causes of mortality during the financial year 2021/22 with a total of 70 deaths, males 41, female 29, which was a proportion of 23 percent.
The data further indicates that the proportion of pregnant mothers with malaria from January 2022 to March 2022 increased from 23 percent to 32 percent from April to June 2022, which is a dangerous trend that necessitates IRS.
Uganda first implemented IRS in Kigezi in the 60s and early 1970s in an attempt to eliminate malaria. It was reintroduced in Kigezi again in 2006, moved to Acholi and parts of Lango in 2009, and later to eastern Uganda in 2014.
https://thecooperator.news/malaria-kills-over-130-in-acholi-as-drugs-run-out/
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