Harare — The move by the Global Fund to make United Nations Development Programme the principal recipient of all its grants in favour of the National Aids Council would stall programmes as funds would have to go through the UN agency's offshore accounts, Deputy Minister of Health Dr Douglas Mombeshora has said.

Dr Mombeshora said it would have been a better solution to capacitate reputable local organisations to handle the grants. "What this means is that each time the NAC or any other organisations that are sub-recipients of the Global Fund money -- want anything, they must go through the UNDP.

"The UNDP will look for suppliers of whatever it is that is required, after finding the supplier the UNDP will then order, and after it receives supplies, forward them to NAC," he said.

Since the formation of the Global Fund in 2002, the country has recei- ved grants in Rounds 1, 5 and 8 of funding after some Western nations pooliticised the Fund.

UNDP will take over management from NAC in the final phase of the Round 5 grant and the recently approved Round 8 grant of about US$169 milli- on. The Round 8 money is expected to bring relief to the public health sector.

Global Fund officials are said to be already in the country to oversee the handover process. NAC and UNDP officials would visit all the districts that had benefited from Global Fund grants and take stock of all assets bought with grant money since the first disbursement in 2002.

More than 320 000 people in Zimbabwe are in need of ARV treatment and of the 1.7 million living with HIV, only about 150 000 are obtaining ARVs from the public health sector.