Abudu A. Olalekan |
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has suspended procurement in the National Agency for the Control of AIDS following a discovery that bids for a contract worth $12m for the upgrade of warehouses in 13 states were allegedly tampered with by unidentified NACA officials.
Various audits by the international financing and partnership organisation had also raised red flags on the opaque procurement processes and financial discrepancies in NACA.
Already, a five-member team from the Fund is currently reviewing the agency’s procurement process.
The review, which is part of the Fund’s mission, started on September 4 and will end by September 30.
Our correspondent learnt on Saturday that the health programmes being managed by NACA under the Global Fund would now be taken over by the National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Control Programme.
Nigeria is the single biggest recipient of Global Fund grants, having been allocated over $1.5bn for the 2017-2019 and 2020- 2022 funding cycles. The Global Fund also allocated $294m to Nigeria to mitigate the impact of COVID-19.
Nigeria has the third highest number of HIV infections in the world as 1.7 million people are living with HIV/AIDS.
It also has the highest tuberculosis burden in Africa and the sixth highest globally. It equally possessed the unenviable record of the highest number of global malaria cases in 2019, as well as the highest number of deaths.
The Fund, founded by Microsoft founder, Bill Gates, Melinda French Gates, Kofi Annan, Jeffrey Sachs and Amir Attaran in January 2002, invests more than $4bn a year to support programmes to end epidemics in more than 100 countries.
In March 2021, it launched three new grants to strengthen the fight against HIV, TB and malaria, and build resilient and sustainable systems for health in Nigeria.
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