Like other high-ranking health officials, Minister of Health Rudyard Spencer is in the dark and does not yet have the details of the unfolding 'malaria money saga' spawned by allegations of abuse and mismanagement of a specially approved on-call payment arrangement.

But, not for long. The minister promised to examine the programme, which facilitated the estimated $1 billion in payments to health workers from 2006 to 2009.

"I do not intend to leave this here, I want to know how much money was spent, how much was allocated and approved and who got the money," Spencer said in a release issued by the health ministry Tuesday.

The payment mechanism was put in place as part of the ministry's malaria response to compensate health officials, including public health nurses during the outbreak of the vector-borne disease in 2006.

The health minister has given the finance department in the health ministry, as well as the regional health authorities, a deadline of next week to provide the relevant information on the on-call payment facility.

Mismanagement

The malaria money controversy began after a Sunday Gleaner exclusive story of the alleged abuse and mismanagement of the payment mechanism established to compensate health-care professionals for the extra work they were expected to perform during the outbreak of the vector-borne disease.

The special arrangement ended in June this year and is currently under review. It is alleged that some of the approximately $1 billion, paid out under the special-payment mechanism, was done long after the malaria outbreak had been contained. In addition, there are claims that money was paid to some public health nurses who had not dealt with a single case of the disease.

tyrone.reid@gleanerjm.com