The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
2 November 2009
editorial
It is understandable that President Jakaya Kikwete was shocked upon learning that there were people who were using the plight of Aids orphans for personal gain.
Speaking during his visit to Rungwe District, the head of State cited Makete District as one of the areas where crooks masquerading as compassionate benefactors were taking advantage of the suffering of orphans to fill their own pockets with cash contributed by donors.
This is just a tip of the iceberg. The problem is much more widespread as attested by the number of NGOs that claim to be non-profit bodies specialising in assisting Aids orphans and people living with HIV.
The Government should ask itself why people are resigning from well-paying jobs in both the private and public sectors to form such NGOs.
The answer is simple - Aids NGOs are perhaps the easiest way to make money for those who are shrewd - and heartless - enough.
This is not to say that all NGOs are profiting from others' misfortunes - far from it.
There are many NGOs that are doing a commendable job in assisting Aids orphans, people living with HIV and other less fortunate members of society.
However, as President Kikwete right observed, some people establish NGOs with the sole and express purpose of enriching themselves.
People form and register NGOs, and proceed to submit very convincing proposals to donors. Not before long, millions of shillings in donor funds start pouring into their bank accounts.
But instead of aiding those mentioned in the grant applications, the cash is spent on fancy cars, posh homes, expensive mobile phones and other luxuries.
Those behind these briefcase NGOs then submit to the donors fictitious reports to "account" for the cash.
Aids orphans in Makete and elsewhere invariably don't receive even a cent of the donor funds.
Now that the Head of State himself is aware of this fraud, we hope that the relevant authorities will clamp down hard on all such crooks.
US President Barack Obama deserves praise for lifting a 22-year-old law banning people infected with the Aids virus from travelling to the United States.
It's a long time since the days when Aids was viewed as abominable curse and those living with HIV were seen as outcasts and undesirables, and one wonders why an advanced and forward-looking nation such as the US continued to embrace such a highly discriminatory law all these years.
The ban, which will be officially lifted today, made the US seem pretty hypocritical as far as the war on the global Aids pandemic was concerned.
Here was a nation that spent hundreds of millions of dollars funding Aids programmes in countries such as Tanzania, but which did not want outsiders living with the Aids virus anywhere near its borders.
This is summed up by President Obama's own words: "We lead the world when it comes to helping stem the Aids pandemic - yet we are one of only a dozen countries that still bar people with HIV from entering our own country."
The Americans have known probably better than anybody else that discriminating against people living with HIV is the surest way to perpetuate the Aids pandemic.
The ban lifted by President Obama amounted to national stigmatisation of those living with HIV.
We call upon other nations with similar discriminatory laws to repeal them and give the global effort against Aids a fresh impetus.
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Thanks Mr. President for being a model for all countries who are discriminating people with HIV.