African graft stings donors

The Global Fund is the largest single financing agency in the world to combat the three diseases. It has raised more than $5 billion from donor governments and private philanthropies, and funded programs in 131 countries.

By last August, Uganda had already received more than $45 million of the $201 million that was earmarked for the country over the course of two years when a whistle-blower cried foul. After ordering an outside audit, Fund officials suspended Uganda's grants, citing "serious mismanagement." They were restored several months later, after the government commissioned an inquiry. It also agreed to changes in how the money was being disbursed and overseen, starting with the dissolution of the office responsible for doling out the funds, the Project Management Unit, which one Fund official likened to "a piggy bank" for those with the right connections.

Judge James Ogoola, who headed the probe, called it "no less than an audit on our country's moral standing." He found that hundreds of millions of shillings had been spent on "sensitization workshops" and generous "hardship allowances" for everyone from secretaries on up. A number of organizations that received Fund money had no physical addresses, let alone any experience in the health field. Officials in the Ministry of Health also testified that they had "borrowed" Global Fund money to campaign for a referendum to change the constitution to allow President Yoweri Museveni to run for a third term.

Local AIDS groups were particularly outraged when it was revealed in April that some $22,000 had been taken from the Global Fund basket to pay the hospital bills of a former government minister.

"Uganda has received a lot of money for AIDS - probably more than people can imagine in Africa," says Rubaramira Ruranga, a well-known AIDS activist. Mr. Ruranga faulted donors and the Ugandan government for fostering a system that tolerates, if not encourages, corruption. "AIDS in this country has become an industry," he says.

Global Fund officials say that the Ugandan government has cooperated with Geneva to put in better oversight mechanisms, such as hiring an outside company to serve as a "caretaker management firm." They say that, in general, the Fund had tightened "checks and balances" everywhere. "This is an opportunity to dust ourselves off and move forward," says Mr. Bampoe.

Last week, a newly reelected Museveni announced that the three ministers implicated in the scandal would be dropped from his new cabinet. A spokesman said the President was "responding to the public mood." Charles Mubbale, a director of the Ugandan chapter of Transparency International, says it is unlikely the ministers will face any official censure in the end. The Daily Monitor, a local newspaper, called the entire inquiry an "elegant diversion" to placate donors.

Mr. Mubbale says a deeper problem is the pervasive cynicism among Africans that comes from often seeing graft rewarded rather than punished. "The hard-working person who doesn't steal ... they say he's stupid and lazy," says Mubbale. "It's become an attitude of, well, let's just wait our turn."

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