Donor partners at the ongoing global HIV/AIDS meeting in Kampala have called for increased accountability of funds provided to the governments to combat the scourge.
Experts from the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS ( UNAIDS), and the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief told reporters on Wednesday that the governments must include all stakeholders in determining how the funds are allocated and for what particular use.
"We need really to foster public debates so that different players can be part of what is happening in societies and how resources which are made available can be for people who are in need," said Michel Sidibe, an official at the UNAIDS.
He said countries could achieve more successes in the fight against the pandemic when the monitoring and evaluation structures are in place.
Michel Kazatchkine, executive director of the Global Fund, said the fund now has rigorous procedures that countries have to go through before funds are released.
He said countries have to submit financial reports, which have to be verified by an independent auditing firm, before more funds are released.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni while opening the 2008 HIV/ AIDS Implementers Meeting on Tuesday promised the donors that past mistakes of Global Fund grants being embezzled in the country would not happen again.
In 2005, senior government officials including then health minister and two of his deputies were implicated in the embezzlement of the grant, prompting the Global Fund to temporarily suspend five grants worth 367 million U.S. dollars to the East African country.
Kazatchkine said Museveni in a private meeting with the donors, took strong commitment that all investigations will be completed and money recovered.
(Xinhua News Agency June 5, 2008)