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Tabloid Journalist Puts a Human Face on HIV/AIDS

R-E-V-E-A-L-E-D!
Untold story of AIDS money
Intrigues that characterize donor funds

By AGAPTUS ANAELE (agaptus@yahoo.co.uk)

Funds for HIV/AIDS programme in Nigeria have tripled since 1999.
Statistics reveal that over N20billion has been pledged by different donor agencies, but the percentage of money that gets into the country, is raising irreconcilable questions.

Asked about the millions of dollars pouring into the country from external donors, Mr. Segilola Araoye, the Assistant Director Nigeria’s AIDS and STI Control Programme (NASCP) said, “When I see newspaper headlines saying that millions of dollars have come to Nigeria from foreign donors, I laugh.”

He laughs because he said that most people don’t realize that only 50 percent of the money donated gets to Nigeria. The rest, he said goes back to the host country.

“Consultants are flown in from the donor countries. Large chunk of the money is spent on their hotel accommodation, air travels and administrative charges,” he said.

Segilola opened rare insights into the intrigues that characterize the inflow of HIV/AIDS money into Nigeria.

“It raises the problem of planning, because you don’t know how much they are bringing in and how they are spending it. You can’t plan if you don’t know how much everybody is putting in the purse. This hampers harmonization, resulting in duplication of activities.”

He insists that it is important to distinguish between money specifically allocated for programme implementation and administrative charges, that way Nigeria will know how much exactly gets to it. Mr. Alex Ogundipe, the Director, Policy Strategy and Planning of the National Agency for the Control of HIV/AIDS (NACA), admits that the money flowing into Nigeria for HIV/AIDS has doubled, but also expresses the same worry on how much really gets into the country.

Ogundipe bluntly put it: “A lot of resources come into Nigeria from donor agencies, but it is so cloudy. In 2007 alone, President Bush Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief in Africa (PEPFAR) is bringing $360million. Unfortunately, the accounting system is rendered to the US government. We don’t see the accounting procedure. We don’t see the amount. They tell us and we believe.”

Ogundipe says the British Department for International Development (DFID) is developing an aid package of 100million Pounds for Nigeria, “but we don’t know how much equipment will come from London,” he said.

Organdie admitted that the ‘Nigeria factor’ - that the country is known for fraud schemes and corruption, largely accounts for the practice. However, he was quick to add that, “Nigeria has good people, who are driven by passion and integrity.”

Linda Omeka coordinates the activities of the Organization of Positive Persons, a support group of persons living with HIV. She agrees with both NACA’s Ogundipe and NASCP’s Segilola.  “If you hear the billions of dollars being spent on HIV/AIDS in the country, you wonder if it is getting to the grassroots. It is not getting to the grassroots that is why we ask where the money is. People are dying of HIV/AIDS in the communities.”

Donor reacts

The Chairman of the Country Coordinating Mechanism for the Global Fund, Dr. Jerome Mafeni said the principle behind the donor funding is to ensure quality, accountability and benefit to their home country.

“Donor assistance is different from humanitarian assistance. For most donors, the kind of assistance they provide is tied very closely to their national strategic needs. That is the first principle. Secondly they see it as a way of ensuring quality and the only way is to rely on systems which they already know.

Dr. Mafeni, who is also the Chief of Party of the USAID-funded ENHANSE project, said some of the donor assistance are done in a way that should benefit the donor country’s economy. “So they are not just going to release money and put directly in the hands of recipient countries,” Mafeni said.

Donors

Sunday Sun checks reveal that over $ TKbillion has been pledged by different donors in the past two years.

This paper’s checks show that the largest donor of HIV funds is the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). USAID has committed over $1billion in the past three years. Others include DFID, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the Global Fund.

The funding pattern of the Global Fund, an organization that provides resources for prevention, treatment and control of Malaria, HIV and TB is slightly different from most external donor, because its grants are directly channeled through the government’s agencies like the National Agency for the Control of AIDS and NASCP. So far, it has committed over   $270million in the past five years.

Apart from the donors, the Nigerian government has also increased its budgetary allocation to HIV/AIDS from a paltry N300.000 in 1999 to N6.5 billion in 2006.

The amount is shared between NACA and the Federal Ministry of Health. There is also an additional N1billion realized from the Debt Relief Fund, the money realized from the debt reprieve granted Nigeria by the London Paris Club, totaling N7.5billion allocated to HIV/AIDS in 2007.

However, Sunday Sun checks reveal that not all monies appropriated for HIV/AIDS are released.

Alex Ogundipe of NACA says there is a difference between money appropriated and money released. “Sometimes you are unable to track the money released because in the civil service, you are only authorized to see what you are allowed to see.”

Ogundipe is optimistic about a new policy that the Federal Government has instituted. “The Nigerian Overseas Development Assistance Policy (ODA) is a policy that stipulates the terms for foreign donors. It clearly spells out its areas of need."

If implemented, the policy will become mandatory for donors to declare how much they intend to spend and how they will spend it.

Ogundipe said is hopeful that the Monitoring and Evaluation programmes being developed for retiring government’s HIV/AIDS money, particularly the money realized from the debt relief gains currently being warehoused in the coffers of NACA, will help track AIDS fund.