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Gen. Muhwezi cited in AIDS money scam
By Ssemujju Ibrahim Nganda
WEEKLY OBSERVERHealth minister Maj. Gen. Jim Katugugu Muhwezi allegedly used money from the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFTM) to pay two former political agents who claim they campaigned for him during the 2001 parliamentary elections.
The insinuation is contained in the PriceWaterHouseCoopers audit report released in August. The two agents, Collins Mwesigwa and Mrs. Victoria Bindeeba, each reportedly received Shs 2m after their suspension from a Rukungiri-based organisation where they claim the minister had offered them employment.
This was in addition to earlier earnings.
Mwesigwa and Bindeeba were respectively secretary and treasurer for Rural Health Development Organisation (RHEDO).
Muhwezi is the patron of the organisation.The 121-page report produced by PriceWater HouseCoopers for the managers of the Global Fund in Geneva, quotes an unnamed chairman of RHEDO telling auditors that the two were suspended for alleging that Muhwezi, had promised to reward them for political mobilisation.
However, the report does not clearly state the circumstances of Muhwezis involvement in the organisations management or with the two so-called political agents.
RHEDO managers later sought Muhwezis intervention; and the matter concluded when the political mobilisers received payment from the money otherwise intended for people living with HIV/AIDS. This was on May 30.According to the audit report, Shs 1.8 million was spent to enable Muhwezi officiate at the opening of a state aided maternity ward in Kashari yet this had nothing to do with any of the Global Funds programmes in Uganda.
According to the communication attached to the payment, this is not a GF related activity. Funds provided were also not accounted for, reads the report.This is the closest Gen. Muhwezi is directly mentioned in the report that last month led to the suspension of about US$201 million (Shs 280 billion) approved for Uganda over two years. The managers cited such irregularities in the use of the $45 million (Shs 81 billion) that had already been released.
Uganda had initially requested for $366,987,284.29 for Round I&3 (HIV/AIDS); Round 2&4 (Malaria) and Round 2 (TB).
The total amount allocated to Uganda over five years was $371m (Shs 686 billion).
The suspension of funding caused a chain reaction from the Ugandan authorities. The government suspended the head of the Global Fund Programme Management Unit (PMU), Dr. Tiberius Muheebwa. He was the top officer charged with disbursing the money.President Museveni then set up a commission of inquiry under Justice James Ogoola. Now some Members of Parliament are demanding for Muhwezis resignation. There are also attempts to censure him (for the second time in his short political career) if he fails to take political responsibility and resign over the scandal.
Busiro South MP Issa Kikungwe leads the censure lobby. The MPs argue that even if Muhwezi may not have personally benefited from the loot in a direct way, the abuse took place under his watch. So the right thing to do is to resign.
However, Muhwezi has vowed to fight on and indications are that the lobby may fail to collect the minimum number of 80 signatures that they need to censure him. This is in part because of the partisan political spin given to the move ahead of general elections in March 2006.
The embattled Muhwezi took a timely holiday in London shortly after the scandal broke, but even that trip caused controversy following claims that he had for some funny reason abandoned his two diplomatic passports DA-021428 and DA-0119914 and instead acquired an ordinary one B-0504819 on August 24, 2005.
In his application letter, Muhwezi claimed he wanted a new passport because the one in his possession had expired. But intelligence sources have since proved that both his diplomatic passports are valid. So why did he tell that small white lie?
Muhwezi has since explained that what he wanted was a separate East African passport for travel within the East African Community region, only that his aide made a mistake and asked for an ordinary Ugandan passport, which he has since returned.
But Muhwezi had signed the cover letter himself and nowhere does he state that he wanted an EAC passport for regional travel.
Eyebrows were further raised when Muhwezis junior health minister, Mike Mukula, also strangely applied for an ordinary passport on top of the diplomatic one (DA019272) he already holds.Mukulas new ordinary passport (B-05016145) came on August 31, 2005 just five days after Muhwezi acquired his.
This set tongues wagging as pundits in the intelligence services speculated on why the two highflying ministers of health would suddenly want to become ordinary travelling on the citizens passport. That is another story, though.In Geneva, meanwhile, Global Fund officials do not want Uganda to use its confidential report as a reference in Justice Ogoolas investigation. But Ugandan authorities insist that since Geneva intentionally leaked the report to the media, Ogoolas investigation must refer to its findings.
The top official in the Ministry of Health directly mentioned in the report is Permanent Secretary Muhammad Besweri Kezaala. He received Shs 19 million to inspect Global Fund activities.The funds were to cover a 60-day trip to supervise the Global Fund activities. The attached receipts as support for the fuel covered only a months travel. It also would appear unreasonable for the PS to be out of the office for a period of two months on supervision, reads the report.
The former director general of Health Services, Prof. Francis Omaswa also allegedly received Shs 39.7m.There were payments for tickets and allowances (Shs 39.7 million) for Professor Omaswa to attend the Global Fund meeting in Oslo, Paris, Geneva and Rochester, New York. The PMU did not have complete documentation on why these payments had to be made by them instead of the GF Secretariat. Our expectation is that the GF would meet all GF related costs, reads the report.
Interestingly, Prof. Omaswa was the chairman of Country Co-ordinating Mechanism (CCM) responsible for identifying national gaps in financing, coordinating proposals and ensuring consistency with national strategic plans.
Mr. Kezaala is a member of CCM as well, so is the Secretary to the Treasurer Mr. Chris Kassami.
The report also mentions Omaswas wife, Catherine, as having benefited from the Fund. The GF paid Shs 12.4 million for her to attend the American Telemedicine Association course whose relevance, PriceWaterHouseCoopers failed to establish.Moreover, this was an ICT-related training. The basis of selection of who qualified for training could not be established, concludes the report.
Mrs. Catherine Omaswa is a medical doctor working with government.
Prof. Omaswas CCM is also accused in the report of getting involved in the daily running of the programme instead of sticking to its policy-making role.Prof. Omaswa has since left Uganda for an international job in Geneva.
The report shows a high concentration of beneficiaries of Global Fund in Rukungiri, (and Kigezi generally) as well as Ankole all in western Uganda, the home area of President Museveni and most high ranking government officials.Rukungiri is specifically the home area of both Muhwezi and Dr. Muheebwa.
Some of the organisations from Rukungiri/Kigezi/Ankole that received AIDS money and face accountability questions include: Rukungiri Gender and Development Association (RUGADA).This one received Shs 151 million and distributed part of it Shs 51 million to; Rujumbura Development Foundation (Shs 12m), Kabale Networking Organisation (Shs 13m), Kisoro Foundation for Rural Development (Shs 13m) and Kinkizi Agency for Development (Shs 12m).
Integrated Community Based Initiatives received Shs 225m. It operates in Mbarara, Bushenyi and Ntungamo.PriceWaterHouseCoopers questioned fraudulent costs and unsupported expenditure of these organisations.
From Mbarara again there is; Malaria, TB, HIV Concern registered only in January this year. It received Shs 45 million and it is accused of fraudulent expenditure.Background
Dr. Crispus Kiyonga received international acclaim in July 2001 when United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan appointed him Chair of the Transition Working Group for the formation of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria.
When the Global Fund was born in January 2002, Dr. Kiyonga was elected Chair. In this capacity, he was the key architect and advocate of the Funds strategic vision and implementation plan, which resulted in $2.1 billion from donors and two rounds of grant applications from recipient countries and organisations.
Currently, he is the Minister without Portfolio and National Political Commissar.What is Global Fund?
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, was established in Geneva, Switzerland, in January 2002.
The Fund makes grants in developing countries aimed at reducing the number of HIV, Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria infections as well as the illness and death that result from such infections.The Fund is an independent foundation, and its board of directors consists of representatives of seven donor countries and seven developing countries.
The board also includes one representative from a developed country non-governmental organisation (NGO), a developing country NGO, the private sector, a contributing private foundation, and the community of people living with HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis or malaria.The Executive Director of the Global Fund is Dr. Richard Feachem, a British physician who has held teaching and administrative positions in international health in the United States and Britain. The Chairman of the Global Funds Board of Directors is Tommy Thompson, chosen when he was serving as the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). Thompson, who stepped down from his HHS post in January 2005, is expected to leave the Global Fund chairmanship at the end of the next board meeting, slated for April 21-22 in Geneva.
Under the Global Fund bylaws, the two-year chairmanship will then rotate from the group of donors to the group consisting of developing countries and NGOs. Randall Tobias, the U.S.
Global AIDS Coordinator, who heads the Global AIDS Initiative at the Department of State, will replace Thompson as the U.S. representative on the board.The Global Funds efforts are intended to mitigate the impact of infectious disease on countries in need and thus to contribute to a reduction in poverty. The Fund projects that over five years, the 313 grants it has approved in 127 countries will result in 1.6 million patients receiving antiretroviral (ARV) therapy for the treatment of AIDS, as well as the treatment of 3.5 million additional cases of TB through the highly effective strategy.
In addition, the Global Fund projectsthat 52 million clients will be reached through voluntary counselling and testing services for preventing the spread of HIV; over one million orphans will receive support, and 145 million malaria patients will receive the new artemisinin-based combination drug treatments (ACT).
Artemisinin-based treatments have been found effective in dealing with drug-resistant varieties of malaria.
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