Corruption - Why Aid for HIV/Aids is a Do Or Die

A story is told in Uganda's civil society organisations circles of how AIM, an International NGO, gave a women's group called PACHEGO in Pakwach town money to conduct HIV/AIDS activities.

With the little capacity and skills they had acquired, the women utilised all the money, achieved their targets and accounted for all the money estimated between Ush12 to 15 million.

Mr. Kyahuka, coordinator Uganda Net Work for Aids Service Organisations (UNASO) quickly brings to light this example to stimulate hope that all is not lost on accountability.

"That example demonstrates that people are more responsible about their lives than the health ministry, so they (the people) are the ones who should run their health programmes. Experts should come in as facilitators," says Kyahuka.

Uganda, having been extolled globally for its exemplary approach to the AIDS pandemic, also became one of the first beneficiaries of many global funding.

But in 2005 the first batch of funding amounting to US$45million from the Global Fund to fight malaria, tuberculosis was grossly mismanaged and consequently, the fund was temporarily suspended over gross mismanagement. The lives of HIV/AIDS patients hang in a delicate balance as it became apparent that crucial supplies including ARVs would run out of stock.

The Uganda government instituted a probe headed by a High Court judge, Justice James Ogoola (known as the Ogoola Commission) into the matter. The public hearings that ensued exposed ugly revelations, namely; the line minister and state ministers presided over several management and accounting procedure breaches, the permanent secretary, who is the accounting officer of the health ministry was in several instances falling far below accounting, monitoring procedures in administering the funds, project money was being used to run ministry expenditure, recipients including those meant to politically monitor the use of AIDS funding were withdrawing funds disbursed into their accounts instantly without showing cause for the withdrawals. Flawed recruitment, false accounting to capacity building activities and many more obscenities were also exposed.

During this period, anger and fear of the unknown abound, but good enough the Global Fund agreed to reinstate support having gotten satisfied about the probe handling.

"When a donor pulls out from the pool of donors, there is a back lash on the patients because a funding gap is created and the attendant service may lack. It is particularly delicate because people already on ART must in no way skip their schedule," says Dr Emmanuel M Bukajumbe, the acting Medical Services Coordinator AIDS Information Centre (AIC), a major civil society organisation in Uganda.

This scenario has caused a complex situation where, despite gross abuses and mismanagement, aid for AIDS must continue to be availed, prompting the statement that it is a do-or-die.

"It is difficult to remove accountability issues completely or drastically. But a lot can be done to scale down fraud. Civil society and donors may have to tighten on audit systems and quarterly audit reports produced. The same standard must be applied to government as well," says Bukajumbe.

According to Kyahuka, the problem in Uganda has been that the governance component, especially political leadership has been weak.

"If the leader at the helm of an HIV/AIDS project is weak or corrupt, the rest of the bond is weakened. The theft of AIDS money should not be looked at in isolation of other accountability problems. The Global Fund saga for example could be traced to the setting up of it s' structures. They were both wrong and poorly managed,"Kyahuka argues. "Civil society had for example noticed that the structures set up prior to the Global Fund were weak. At the onset senior officials showed reluctance to be transparent and when the project started, it ended up is shambles."

source:allafrica.com