News / Health
Masca workers continue to raise concerns over a cocktail of issues
26 Mar 2025 at 16:50hrs | Views
WORKERS at Medical Aid Society Central Africa (Masca) have said the Society continues to face an all-time high crisis in corporate governance, financial management, and member and service provider relations.
The workers said despite the board having drawn up an organogram in October 2023, three other organograms have since been drawn up by the CFO without notifying the board in her quest to usurp powers.
"The CEO continues to tag along in a passive role in all matters of governance giving a free hand to the CFO. Most changes do not align with the Society's line function as a funder, instead, gets more emphatic on accounts thus running the Society like a tuckshop accounting firm. Despite the goings-on, the board remains aloof," said the worker.
"Even the board's representative Tony Rowland, now tasked with assisting the CEO in executive decisions, is now a dead horse. The same Tony at one time called up a staff meeting only to tell people to walk away and use our two feet should we not be happy with the goings on."
The worker said this was interpreted by staff as nothing short of racist bigotry serving only to demoralise the work effort.
"It is now the general conclusion that the board or part thereof could be complicit in the previously looted funds as they remain inactive and unbothered in so far as investigating worker concerns. In our last correspondence we highlighted that one lady, Hazel Malila, had suffered depression due to ill treatment from the trio in the finance department," said the worker.
"She had to resign in January this year. History has once again repeated itself in the Society as several employees now complain of depression. Adrian Moyo is one such case diagnosed with depression. Due to poor governance, the Society's membership has dwindled from 600k during Alban William's era, 400k during Josen Sigola's era and now 15k under the current Douglas Bramsen and Tashinga Chimuti's era."
The worker noted that while current management would want to attribute the decline to closure in industry, surprisingly other funders like FML, Alliance and CIMAS are growing at our expense.
"While the finance department is manned by two former auditors, one being a chartered accountant, financial management leaves a lot to be desired. The Society literally scrounges to settle claims with a backlog of over 90 days in outstanding claims with no solution in sight. The Society still sits on zero reserves despite statutory requirements. Preferential treatment in the accounts department has seen four members earn up to 250% more than their salaries over the last couple of months despite a standing policy that HOD's should not claim overtime," the worker noted.
"There's a serious uproar between MASCA, members and service providers due to unsettled claims. Service providers, being the worst affected, now deny treatment to our members as they have to endlessly follow up on due payments with little or no response from accounts. Members now have to settle treatment bills in cash despite payment of subscriptions."
The worker said one wonders at this rate, how many members we shall have by year-end.
"The recent AGM held on 20-03-25, was an eye opener and bears testimony to the shambolic state of affairs. The CEO and CFO only mumbled and could not adequately respond to questions from the floor hence summarised as an embarrassing disaster," he said.
"MASCA is definitely poised to lose further membership after such a dismal presentation. The recently introduced Prognosis IT system still appears to be at infancy stage and yet we are eight months on. The same system has been successfully implemented by other funders like HBC, FML, Alliance and CIMAS. One wonders why the accounts department endlessly complains of the program as a failure. They don't seem to understand that Prognosis is a corporate and not an accounting package."
"To sum it up, all the current misfortunes bedevilling the Society could be shouldered on the board's inattentiveness and lack of due diligence on the inept CEO and CFO."
Recently, MASCA has dismissed the accusations of mismanagement by sources within the organisation as false and defamatory in the process demanding retraction for the published allegations.
This was after sources claimed to be aggrieved by the alleged happenings saying three top management officials are accused of running down the company after taking charge of the Information technology system.
They said IT and others are supposed to be supporting arms, however, at MASCA, three people (names supplied) run the show.
They indicated that since the trio came on board, MASCA has since been run like an accounting firm or rather like a tuck-shop and one of them usurped all powers and left the current Chief Executive officer a mere passenger.
Responding to the story published by Bulawayo24 24on 28 November 2023 Masca through their lawyers from Calderwood, Bryce Hendrie and Partners in a letter described the allegations as false.
The company said there are a number of patently false claims about Masca.
"The main allegations and the reality are as follows: three top officials Have Hijacked the Society. Masca is a member-driven Society with an active Board which oversees operations and ensures that it is managed for the benefit of the members and other stakeholders," reads the Masca response.
"The CEO is fulfilling his role, which is unchanged, and currently reports to an Executive Director who in turn reports to a Board sub-committee called Revco. Revco reports to the Board bi-weekly. Masca has had some IT challenges which are being effectively addressed by Revco in conjunction with the committed IT team."
On the claim that many workers left Masca Between January and April 2023, the lawyers said employees left Masca in the period mentioned and of these, one retired, one went overseas and the remainder moved on to other jobs.
" The ex CEO who is mentioned has returned to Masca on a temporary basis to assist the Society solve the IT challenges mentioned," read the Masca response.
On the claim that in the last Quarter of 2022 Masca had Forex Reserves of US $3 million which were deposited at Fawcett, the lawyers noted that Masca holds sufficient liquid resources to pay for those situations which require it and no more. They added that it has never had $3 million with Fawcett.
On the report that Masca has drawn down (US) from the (Alleged $3 million) Fund (In Fawcett) to change into ZWL on the Black Market, the company noted that it has never entered into transactions as alleged.
In the claims that Masca Executives Secured Various Properties the lawyers said a check at the Deeds Office will prove that no Masca Executives have bought properties in the last 10 years and the claims were false.
In the claim that Masca changed the IT System from Smartmed to Medcare, the company said as "mentioned already, the ex CEO who developed Medcare has kindly returned to help Masca resolve the IT challenges which arose because of the migration from Medcare to Smartmed in April. The decision to implement Smartmed before it was robustly tested was ill-fated. The software developers of Smartmed experienced staff losses during development and implementation and could not complete the project leaving Masca in a difficult predicament."
The company noted that the amounts mentioned as having been paid are totally incorrect and hugely exaggerated.
"Masca has gone back on to the old Medcare system which has been a mammoth exercise because of the need to recapture data which had been loaded on to Smartmed," the company said through lawyers.
On the claims that Masca is sitting on zero reserve funds the lawyers said Masca has sufficient resources to meet all financial obligations to members, service providers and others.
They said the Society holds more than adequate reserves to continue doing so.
The company also dismissed the claims that its Chief Executive Officer, Doug Bramsen was not reachable for comment saying has not been approached by anyone seeking clarification on the issues set out in the said allegations.
Sources had said that three top management officials were being accused of running down the company after taking charge of the Information technology systems.
They claimed that Masca allegedly changed the IT system from MEDCARE to SMARTMED authored by a company called AE company and were paid about US$100 000 in cash. They also claimed that according to monthly requisitions, they were supposedly paid US$20 000 monthly but only got US$2 000 instead all which is being dismissed by the company.
The workers said despite the board having drawn up an organogram in October 2023, three other organograms have since been drawn up by the CFO without notifying the board in her quest to usurp powers.
"The CEO continues to tag along in a passive role in all matters of governance giving a free hand to the CFO. Most changes do not align with the Society's line function as a funder, instead, gets more emphatic on accounts thus running the Society like a tuckshop accounting firm. Despite the goings-on, the board remains aloof," said the worker.
"Even the board's representative Tony Rowland, now tasked with assisting the CEO in executive decisions, is now a dead horse. The same Tony at one time called up a staff meeting only to tell people to walk away and use our two feet should we not be happy with the goings on."
The worker said this was interpreted by staff as nothing short of racist bigotry serving only to demoralise the work effort.
"It is now the general conclusion that the board or part thereof could be complicit in the previously looted funds as they remain inactive and unbothered in so far as investigating worker concerns. In our last correspondence we highlighted that one lady, Hazel Malila, had suffered depression due to ill treatment from the trio in the finance department," said the worker.
"She had to resign in January this year. History has once again repeated itself in the Society as several employees now complain of depression. Adrian Moyo is one such case diagnosed with depression. Due to poor governance, the Society's membership has dwindled from 600k during Alban William's era, 400k during Josen Sigola's era and now 15k under the current Douglas Bramsen and Tashinga Chimuti's era."
The worker noted that while current management would want to attribute the decline to closure in industry, surprisingly other funders like FML, Alliance and CIMAS are growing at our expense.
"While the finance department is manned by two former auditors, one being a chartered accountant, financial management leaves a lot to be desired. The Society literally scrounges to settle claims with a backlog of over 90 days in outstanding claims with no solution in sight. The Society still sits on zero reserves despite statutory requirements. Preferential treatment in the accounts department has seen four members earn up to 250% more than their salaries over the last couple of months despite a standing policy that HOD's should not claim overtime," the worker noted.
"There's a serious uproar between MASCA, members and service providers due to unsettled claims. Service providers, being the worst affected, now deny treatment to our members as they have to endlessly follow up on due payments with little or no response from accounts. Members now have to settle treatment bills in cash despite payment of subscriptions."
The worker said one wonders at this rate, how many members we shall have by year-end.
"The recent AGM held on 20-03-25, was an eye opener and bears testimony to the shambolic state of affairs. The CEO and CFO only mumbled and could not adequately respond to questions from the floor hence summarised as an embarrassing disaster," he said.
"MASCA is definitely poised to lose further membership after such a dismal presentation. The recently introduced Prognosis IT system still appears to be at infancy stage and yet we are eight months on. The same system has been successfully implemented by other funders like HBC, FML, Alliance and CIMAS. One wonders why the accounts department endlessly complains of the program as a failure. They don't seem to understand that Prognosis is a corporate and not an accounting package."
"To sum it up, all the current misfortunes bedevilling the Society could be shouldered on the board's inattentiveness and lack of due diligence on the inept CEO and CFO."
Recently, MASCA has dismissed the accusations of mismanagement by sources within the organisation as false and defamatory in the process demanding retraction for the published allegations.
This was after sources claimed to be aggrieved by the alleged happenings saying three top management officials are accused of running down the company after taking charge of the Information technology system.
They said IT and others are supposed to be supporting arms, however, at MASCA, three people (names supplied) run the show.
They indicated that since the trio came on board, MASCA has since been run like an accounting firm or rather like a tuck-shop and one of them usurped all powers and left the current Chief Executive officer a mere passenger.
The company said there are a number of patently false claims about Masca.
"The main allegations and the reality are as follows: three top officials Have Hijacked the Society. Masca is a member-driven Society with an active Board which oversees operations and ensures that it is managed for the benefit of the members and other stakeholders," reads the Masca response.
"The CEO is fulfilling his role, which is unchanged, and currently reports to an Executive Director who in turn reports to a Board sub-committee called Revco. Revco reports to the Board bi-weekly. Masca has had some IT challenges which are being effectively addressed by Revco in conjunction with the committed IT team."
On the claim that many workers left Masca Between January and April 2023, the lawyers said employees left Masca in the period mentioned and of these, one retired, one went overseas and the remainder moved on to other jobs.
" The ex CEO who is mentioned has returned to Masca on a temporary basis to assist the Society solve the IT challenges mentioned," read the Masca response.
On the claim that in the last Quarter of 2022 Masca had Forex Reserves of US $3 million which were deposited at Fawcett, the lawyers noted that Masca holds sufficient liquid resources to pay for those situations which require it and no more. They added that it has never had $3 million with Fawcett.
On the report that Masca has drawn down (US) from the (Alleged $3 million) Fund (In Fawcett) to change into ZWL on the Black Market, the company noted that it has never entered into transactions as alleged.
In the claims that Masca Executives Secured Various Properties the lawyers said a check at the Deeds Office will prove that no Masca Executives have bought properties in the last 10 years and the claims were false.
In the claim that Masca changed the IT System from Smartmed to Medcare, the company said as "mentioned already, the ex CEO who developed Medcare has kindly returned to help Masca resolve the IT challenges which arose because of the migration from Medcare to Smartmed in April. The decision to implement Smartmed before it was robustly tested was ill-fated. The software developers of Smartmed experienced staff losses during development and implementation and could not complete the project leaving Masca in a difficult predicament."
The company noted that the amounts mentioned as having been paid are totally incorrect and hugely exaggerated.
"Masca has gone back on to the old Medcare system which has been a mammoth exercise because of the need to recapture data which had been loaded on to Smartmed," the company said through lawyers.
On the claims that Masca is sitting on zero reserve funds the lawyers said Masca has sufficient resources to meet all financial obligations to members, service providers and others.
They said the Society holds more than adequate reserves to continue doing so.
The company also dismissed the claims that its Chief Executive Officer, Doug Bramsen was not reachable for comment saying has not been approached by anyone seeking clarification on the issues set out in the said allegations.
Sources had said that three top management officials were being accused of running down the company after taking charge of the Information technology systems.
They claimed that Masca allegedly changed the IT system from MEDCARE to SMARTMED authored by a company called AE company and were paid about US$100 000 in cash. They also claimed that according to monthly requisitions, they were supposedly paid US$20 000 monthly but only got US$2 000 instead all which is being dismissed by the company.
Source - Byo24News
