Latest update: 05/02/2011 

- Africa - AIDS - fraud - HIV


Global Fund Against AIDS vows to crack down on corruption

Global Fund Against AIDS vows to crack down on corruption

The Global Fund Against AIDS, TB and Malaria said Friday it will beef up its financial safeguards after Germany suspended donations amid revelations that 34 million dollars had gone missing from the fund.

By News Wires (text)
 

AFP - The Global Fund Against AIDS, TB and Malaria said Friday it was reinforcing its financial safeguards after donor Germany suspended payments following allegations of corruption.

In December the fund said that its auditors had found that a total of 34 million dollars had gone missing or been taken in four African countries before it reached the community aid programmes that needed the funding.

The fund said in a statement that it was taking "a number of measures to reinforce its financial safeguards and increase its capacity to prevent and detect fraud and misuse in its grants."

They include greater monitoring of expenditure in destination countries and strengthened financial controls there, and more staff for financial control.

Nonetheless, 10 days ago, the fund's executive director Michel Kazatchkine, had underlined its "most rigorous" anti fraud controls and vowed zero tolerance.

"That is why we need to have the strongest possible financial safeguards and fraud prevention measures in place and are responding aggressively when instances of fraud or misappropriation are detected," he added on Friday.

The Global Fund is the world's biggest single source of funding to tackle three of the world's greatest killer diseases, with an overall budget of 21.7 billion dollars drawn from 150 countries and private donors.
 

Date created : 05/02/2011 
Comments (1)

Global Fund saves millions of lives

by The Global Fund (not verified) - 07/02/2011 - 18:21

The Global Fund is saving millions of lives and driving back the three disease pandemics in large parts of the world. The Global Fund has zero tolerance for corruption and has robust controls to protect grants against this risk.

Financing live-saving interventions in the poorest countries does involve risks and there is evidence that corruption in some cases has occurred. In all cases immediate action has been taken, grant disbursements have been suspended and every dollar that has been lost is demanded back. The Global Fund has always followed its principle of transparency by publishing all of these reports on its website since its inception in 2002.

Recent stories in the media have created a completely distorted impression of the scale of corruption in Global Fund grants. The Global Fund itself is creating an independent, international panel of highly respected experts to review its procedures, validate that they are of the highest standards and potentially suggest ways to strengthen them further. The Global Fund wants to reassure donors and the public that its systems and procedures to prevent, detect and clamp down on misuse are solid. Also, be aware that the Global Fund’s Inspector General represent one of five levels of financial controls over Global Fund grants. Every dollar in every grant is audited.

To read more:
Supporting the Global Fund to fight fraud, The Lancet, 5 February 2011
http://bit.ly/gMQHUh
Putting fraud in global health spending in context by Michael Gerson, Washington Post, 4 February 2011
http://wapo.st/haRhiu

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