AIDS Fund to Uganda Halted Over 'Mismanagement'
GENEVA, Aug 24 (Reuters) - An international agency helping spearhead the war against AIDS said on Wednesday it had halted help to Uganda, often praised for its determined stance on the disease, because of evidence of financial mismanagement.
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria said its auditors had serious concerns about the operations of the special agency set up by the Ugandan government to handle cash disbursed by the organisation.
Although there was no clear indication of corruption or fraud, there was evidence of "inappropriate expenditure and improper accounting," the Geneva-based body said.
"The Global Fund has decided to suspend its five grants to Uganda because there is evidence of serious mismanagement by the Project Management Unit (PMU)," it said in reference to the Ugandan government agency.
But the Global Fund stressed the suspension of the programmes would not affect the supply of drugs and other vital assistance to AIDS patients which could be monitored directly from Geneva.
"All necessary measures will be taken to ensure that life-saving treatment as well as prevention activities such as condom procurement ... will not be disrupted," it said.
So far Uganda has received some $45 million out of $201 million (ca. 22%) earmarked for the country by the Global Fund over a two-year period.
The suspension would initially last for two months during which time it was asking the Ugandan authorities to set up a fresh system for handling funds that excluded the PMU.
There was no immediate reaction from Uganda's government.
TOP PRIORITY
Uganda has made AIDS a top policy priority and has been held up as an example to other African states after a government education campaign cut HIV/AIDS infection rates to around 6 percent from as high as 30 percent in the early 1990s.
Most Ugandans attributed the reversal in what was once seen as the epicentre of the disease to President Yoweri Museveni's rare frankness about the role of condoms in tackling the disease.
But his administration has recently come under pressure for seeming to focus more on abstinence in what critics say is a bid to win funds from U.S. conservatives.
The move to block cash for Uganda is the second time in a week that the Fund, which has made financial transparency a key selling point for donors, has suspended help to a recipient state.
On Aug. 19 it stopped funding for Myanmar, blaming travel and other restrictions imposed by the military junta there.
Ukraine was also blacklisted in January 2004 but financing has since been restored, Fund spokesman Jon Liden told Reuters.
Since being launched in 2002, the Global Fund has earmarked some $3.7 billion, of which $1.4 million has been disbursed, to 316 programmes for fighting AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in 127 countries. The United States is a major donor along with other rich industrialised nations.
Africa is home to some 25 million of the world's 38 million people living with HIV/AIDS, but only some 310,000 people are receiving life-prolonging treatment in sub-Saharan countries.
About 1.2 million Ugandans are infected with HIV, according to official figures, and doctors say about 100,000 have AIDS and would benefit from treatment with anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs).
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