The National Aids Coordinating Agency (NACA) has refused to shed light on the P461,865 it paid to Budget Car and Van Rental for excess mileage and incidental charges.

The organisation rented vehicles for the three-month Botswana AIDS Impact Survey (BAIS III) conducted last year from July to October. The final report of the survey was released last week.

On October 22, 2009 the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Board approved Tender No: PR 2/11/1/10-1 (P461 865.55) for payment of excess mileage and incidental charges incurred during the survey. Despite numerous attempts, NACA has refused to answer questions on the payment. The organisation has failed to answer inquiries from Mmegi how the figure was determined; what the original charge was; how many cars were rented; whether some officers used the vehicles for personal chores as alleged by some of the drivers. One of the NACA, officers who preferred anonymity, said he smells a rat in the amount paid saying it is possible somebody has cooked up the figures.

This is not the first time that allegations of financial irregularities have been made against the national AIDS body. In 2006, a dispute ensued between NACA and four major HIV/AIDS organisations in Botswana over unaccounted funds from the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The Global Fund threatened to withhold the remaining P54 million it had promised, if the grant for Botswana was not accounted for.

The Botswana Christian AIDS Intervention Programme (BOCAIP), Botswana Network of AIDS Service Organisations (BONASO), the Botswana Network on Ethics, Law and HIV/AIDS (BONELA), and the Botswana Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (BONEPWA) demanded that NACA explain what happened to the funds spent between 2004 and 2006. They argued that NACA had failed to comply with Global Fund regulations despite the fact that the beneficiary organisations had submitted their reports.

"Whilst the government asserted the problems with the grant was the fault of the non-governmental HIV/AIDS organisations, government itself has not had proper management systems for the fund in place. It was not until April 2006 that it became known that NACA had not submitted any acceptable reports to the Global Fund," the four HIV/AIDS organisations wrote in a joint statement in February 2007. Global Fund later released the P54 million after NACA complied with its rules and regulations.

Meanwhile, the BAIS III report states that the survey was conducted on 8,275 households covering people aged between 10 and 64 years. "Only private dwellings were within the scope of the survey whereas institutional dwellings such as prisons, hospitals, army barracks and hotels as well as the homeless were not covered," the report says.