Life goes on in Uganda
Health Grants to Uganda Halted Over Allegations
By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN
NEW YORK TIMES
A global health organization said yesterday that it had suspended more than $150 million in grants to Uganda because of serious mismanagement.
Officials of the agency, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, said they had taken the action to warn Uganda and other countries that they needed to manage the fund's grants properly.
The fund had awarded Uganda $201 million in five grants and had already paid out $45.4 million of that. Two grants were made to help fight AIDS and two for malaria. The fifth grant was for tuberculosis control. Some started in 2003, and some this year.
Payment will resume "as soon as Uganda comes up with a proper plan to rectify the issues of mismanagement," said Jon Liden, a spokesman for the fund. It has given Uganda until Oct. 24 to improve management of the grants.
"The Global Fund will make every effort to avoid any adverse effect" on Uganda's fight against the three diseases, Mr. Liden said in an interview.
But Uganda's health minister, Jim Muhwezi, told the United Nations news agency, IRIN, that the suspension would hamper the government's effort to respond to the AIDS crisis.
"It is a disruption of the anti-AIDS program, but we hope that we can be able to sort out what they want in a short time," Mr. Muhwezi said.
Mr. Liden said that "we hope there will be a thorough shake-up to get better grant management" and that "in the long run the suspension will benefit Uganda substantially."
The Global Fund, a public-private partnership based in Geneva, is the largest single financing agency in the world to combat the three diseases.
Uganda's grants from the fund are unusual in that they are managed by the finance minister, not the health minister as in most other recipient countries, Mr. Liden said.
In Uganda the Finance Ministry transfers authority to the Health Ministry, which relies on a project management unit to oversee the grants.
The Global Fund learned of the mismanagement charges about six weeks ago and sent a team to investigate. The validity of the charges "ranged from solid to mere allegations," Mr. Liden said.
The suspension was based on a review of one of the grants by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Disbanding of the project management unit is a condition for renewing payment of all of the grants.
One issue involved "messy bookkeeping," in which the unit lacked expertise in daily transactions, Mr. Liden said. One example, he said, was that currency exchange rates charged to grants differed from bank rates quoted for the dates of transactions, amounting to a loss of $280,000. Although that amount was a small part of the $45.4 million spent, "it was a reason for concern on our part," Mr. Liden said.
Other issues involved problems in selecting recipients of grantmoney.
"The evidence was sufficient for us," Mr. Liden said. "We no longer have confidence in the Ugandan program management unit." He added, though, that the Global Fund would arrange to make any acutely needed payments during the suspension.
Uganda has been cited as a model for reducing the transmission rates of H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. Mr. Liden said people "should not confuse Uganda's record in fighting AIDS with the mismanagement of funds by a small group of individuals."
The one other suspension came last year when the Global Fund withheld payments from Ukraine for alleged mismanagement. Financing for the grants was restored within a few weeks, Mr. Liden said.
The Global Fund said it had allocated $3.7 billion to 316 programs in 127 countries. Of the money committed, 56 percent goes to fighting H.I.V. and AIDS, 13 percent to fighting tuberculosis and 31 percent to combating malaria. Sixty percent is spent in sub-Saharan Africa.
A total of $ 1.4 billion has been disbursed to programs so far.
Marc Lacey contributed reporting from Dakar, Senegal, for this article.
Urbane Analysis: Yoweri Museveni's legacy of corruption and graft is now out in the open and suffering repercussions (at the expense of ordinary citizens), but do they "get it" yet about the need to reform and fully develop democracy in Uganda? Hardly. Museveni is as likely to feel "the pinch" from this action as the Ugandan laborer carrying mattresses is to feel a leaf fall on that top mattress! Museveni is so insulated with an air of entitlement to loot his country, it will only be action by G7 leaders that will get the strongman's attention.
