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The chaos at the Premier Service Medical Aid Society cannot be allowed to continue while members, the majority of whom are civil servants, continue to be denied medical care services. PSMAS is facing a myriad of challenges which include among others failure to pay service providers.

The society now owes service providers about $140 million and as a result its members are now being denied services thereby forcing them to pay cash upfront for services. The looting by senior managers who have been paying themselves mega salaries is largely to blame for the challenges facing the society whose 80 percent of members are civil servants.

The government has compounded the situation by failing to remit millions of dollars it has deducted over the years from civil servants’ salaries as contributions to PSMAS. Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister Prisca Mupfumira this week told Parliamentarians who were attending a pre-budget seminar in Victoria Falls that the government was investigating how PSMAS’ constitution was unilaterally changed to have board members who are not appointed by government ministers.

“PSMAS is a monster that I can’t really understand. I have tried to comprehend it in the last four weeks. I don’t understand how as a government we would allow a constitution that has been tempered with,” said Minister Mupfumira.

She said government had an obligation to find solutions to the challenges facing PSMAS because more than 80 percent of the medical aid society’s subscribers are civil servants. Minister Mupfumira’s counterpart, Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa, however, said government had no legal right to hire or fire management at PSMAS because it was not a parastatal.

He said there was nothing government could do about the problems at PSMAS since it was not a government department, a position that is contrary to that of Minister Mupfumira who is of the view that government has genuine interest in the operations of PSMAS. She said her ministry is supposed to come up with a proper restructuring at PSMAS in the interest of civil servants.

Minister Mupfumira and her counterpart, Health and Child Care Minister Dr David Parirenyatwa recently ordered PSMAS board chairman Jeremiah Bvirindi to reinstate suspended managing director Henry Mandishona who is facing allegations of prejudicing the financially crippled society of nearly $300,000 within space of four months. The board has refused to reinstate Mandishona insisting that he should go for a disciplinary hearing.

There is an urgent need to take a decisive action to stop the circus at PSMAS that has caused untold suffering to civil servants who have over the years contributed millions of dollars so that they could access health care services. The government should work together with PSMAS members in order to find a lasting solution.

There is urgent need to rid the society of all corrupt managers that continue to fleece it while members suffer. Once the clean up has been done and the systems have been put in place, government should, without delay, release the millions of dollars it owes the society so that it can pay its service providers and enable members to once again access medical care services.