Corruption in the use of The Global Fund

The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is the biggest foreign aid project in health that is focused on just 3 communicable diseases. It is funded by many governments, especially from the rich countries.

There have been reports of corruption and robbery going on in the utilization of the Fund. I have read one paper sometime 2 years ago, that one health NGO in the Philippines was questioned by the Fund's internal audit system, for a lot of unexplained and/or unliquidated cash advances amounting to several million pesos.

Here is one news report yesterday, Sweden sits on health aid cash over graft fears

Sweden has told the head of the global fund to fight AIDS that it will not pay its 167 million euro contribution unless more is done to ensure the cash is not siphoned off, a report said Saturday...

Sweden has refused to stump up its 1.5 billion krona (167 million euro, $226m) contribution for the period covering 2011-2013 since a report by the United Nations last year showed how donors' cash had been diverted by corrupt officials in at least four countries...

The fund, which has an overall budget of 21.7 billion dollars drawn from 150 countries, is the largest single source of funding for three of the world's biggest killer diseases.

I wrote in March last year, Financial shenanigans by some Phil. health NGOs. The Philippine NGO referred there was the Tropical Disease Foundation (TDF). I do not know what happened to their case.

Robbery in the use of such huge amount of money is highly probable. Taxpayers of rich countries who largely finance that Fund should pressure their governments to conduct strict monitoring and to call for an end to funding if past corruption and robberies were not corrected and the guilty parties were not penalized.