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Uganda: Hand Our Stolen Cash Back, Global Fund Boss Tells Govt
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The Monitor (Kampala)
24 May 2008
Posted to the web 26 May 2008
Chris Obore
Kampala
The Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria has renewed pressure on the government to recover $1.6 million of its grant money that was stolen years ago.
The donors also want all the 373 suspects that a commission of inquiry named to be investigated and those deemed to have a case to answer prosecuted. "There is frustration among the donor community that there was no action taken against the culprits," a senior official with the Geneva-based Global Fund told Saturday Monitor in an interview on Tuesday.
The official, Mr John Parsons, was in the country to assess the progress made since the inquiry led by Principal Judge James Ogoola did its job beginning in 2005.
"The purpose of my visit is to send a strong signal that the Global Fund board is serious [about how its money is used]," said Mr Parsons, the inspector general of the Fund. In August 2005, the Global Fund suspended its portfolio of five grants worth $367 million to Uganda due to concerns about mismanagement by the Project Management Unit, an entity within the Ministry of Health at the time.
The suspension followed an audit that found about $1.6 million (Shs3 billion at the time) had been misappropriated or simply not accounted for.
Consequently, President Museveni instituted the Ogoola Commission to look into the allegations of mismanagement.
"It is almost two years and Uganda has taken no action on the report of the commission of inquiry," Mr Parsons said. "They said investigations would be done by June 2007. It is now May 2008!"
The Global Fund official said that although the government had recovered $420,000, movement of personnel at the centre of the scandal like the three ministers and the permanent secretary at the Health ministry, could complicate investigations.
President Museveni sacked the three Health ministers athe time and transferred the permanent secretary in the midst of the scandal that dimmed Uganda's image as a star performer in the fight against HIV/Aids.
"Some more funds need to be recovered and people investigated," said Mr Parsons. "I have signalled that I need a progress report on action taken by July. It is tremendously important to us that what was due to be recovered, has been recovered."
Although the Fund official said $420,000 (Shs740m) had been recovered, Dr Kihumuro Apuuli, the head of the Uganda Aids Commission, put the figure at Shs2 billion while appearing before Parliament in January.
Mr Parsons said the executive director of the Global Fund would also jet into the country in June to follow up on the matter before the inspector general returns on the same mission between July and August.
Mr Parsons, who was named to his position in January, said he identified Uganda as one of the priority cases for follow-up.
He said Treasury Secretary Chris Kassami had told him that money for investigating all the cases would be provided to the directorates of criminal investigations (CID) and public prosecutions (DPP) in phases.
Mr Parsons also met CID chief Okoth Ochola, Police boss Kale Kayihura, IGG Faith Mwondha, and DPP Richard Buteera.
"The DPP said they have identified 24 priority cases to be prosecuted but all the 373 cases should be investigated," Mr Parsons said. "They said Shs1 billion is needed for investigation and only 20 percent has been given to the DPP and IGP."
The official said the recovered money is kept in a special account in Bank of Uganda "but we wrote to Finance to send back the recovered funds to Geneva".
He added, however, that there is discussion on whether it should be left in the country and used here.
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Dutch Ambassador Jeroen Verheul said: "John [Parsons] came here on the strong request of local development partners. We were concerned about lack of action."
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