Maravi

Dutch government suspends aid to Zambia's health ministry

Dutch government suspends aid to Zambia's health ministry
Written by Chansa Kabwela and George Chellah
Saturday, May 23, 2009 7:48:55 AM

THE Dutch government has suspended aid to Zambia's health sector following allegations of corruption in the Ministry of Health (MoH).

Dutch development minister Bert Koenders on Thursday announced that Netherlands had suspended all financial assistance to the Ministry of Health following revelations by the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) of a K10 billion scam by some government officials.
Koenders said the abuse of Dutch tax money was unacceptable.

"While awaiting the outcome of a corruption investigation, the Netherlands has suspended all financial assistance to the Zambian Health Ministry," Koenders said in a statement according to the Radio Netherlands Worldwide (RNW) website. "The abuse of Dutch tax money is unacceptable."

Koenders said all donors to the country's health sector were alerted and results of an investigation into the matter were expected shortly.

The Netherlands contributes about 13 million Euros [about K92 billion] annually for the funding of rural health care provision, the prevention of malaria, tuberculosis and HIV, and the training of medical staff in Zambia.

The decision by the Netherlands government to suspend aid follows the move by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) to stop its planned release of funds to the Ministry of Health following the alleged K10 billlion scam unearthed by the ACC.

Sida, a government agency of Sweden, was to release 88 million Swedish Kronor [about K59 billion] to the Ministry of Health.

The agency noted that the ACC and the Office of the Auditor General acted promptly and that they hoped to get clarification on the matter.

"Sida, The Swedish development agency, has stopped its planed release of funds to the Zambian health sector after the Anti Corruption Commission, ACC, found irregularities surrounding the use of the health ministry's money," SIDA headquarters noted in a statement on Tuesday. "The ACC suspects one or several officers within the ministry of having stolen public money. Both the Anti Corruption Commission and the Office of the Auditor General have acted promptly and we hope to soon get clarifications on what actually happened."

Head of Sida in Zambia Charlotta Norrby said the agency would not accept any abuse of development funds.

"Sida will not accept any abuse of development money," Norrby stated.

Recently, the ACC unearthed a corruption scam in which over K10 billion government funds were suspected to have been corruptly obtained from the Ministry of Health.

The commission is investigating a former human resource manager in the Ministry of Health, Henry Kapoko, in connection with the alleged corruption, theft and fraud.

The ACC has also seized and restricted property in excess of K3 billion allegedly belonging to Kapoko who now works at the Ministry of Local Government and Housing in the human resource department.

An audit report by the Office of the Auditor General on the Ministry of Health was expected to be ready by yesterday.

And former finance minister Ng'andu Magande yesterday said the recently unearthed K10 billion scam and the subsequent freezing of funding to the Ministry of Health by Sweden was frustrating because the late president Levy Mwanawasa's administration worked hard to gain credibility and trust of donors.

Commenting on the decision by Sida to stop its planned release of funds to the Ministry of Health following the corruption allegations, Magande said the happenings of the recent few days were not very positive.

"The K10 billion that was mentioned in the Ministry of Health, the K900 million on road works in Chipata. These are very sad developments to some of us who were so close to getting this country's huge debt forgiven," Magande explained. "Getting the confidence of the donors, travelling all over the world at night in minus 10 degrees to get things done. These are very sad developments... to me personally I feel frustrated because I was one of those who kept asking Zambians to sacrifice and that at the end of the sacrifice we are going to see a lot of money coming."

He said donors had been giving Zambia money.

"The international institutions have been giving us cheap loans and to hear that this kind of money ends in the hands of officials who don't care even for the lives of people is extremely sad. And it doesn't show really that we perhaps are in control of things," Magande said. "In as much as people would say 'it is not us now who were responsible'. They might be right because some of them definitely don't know how much we suffered, some of us with the officials at the Ministry of Finance to try to get these donors to understand that. For them, they were in the comforts of their offices or their farms that is okay."

Magande said Zambians must show concern.

"It was not done for Magande, it was not done for Mwanawasa and it was not done for the permanent secretary budget or the secretary to the treasury. It was done for Zambians and every Zambian must show concern," Magande said. "The question of trust is on individuals, on the leadership of a country and on the leadership of the government and the people in government. The leaders must still work hard to show that they are people that are running this country with integrity, morals and efficiency. That's the only way our friends are going to continue to trust us."

Magande said the late president Mwanawasa's administration worked hard to gain credibility and trust.

"A lot of things are happening now and it's sad. I personally having been trying to get those things done and as one of the members who is alive...it's a pity the president is not here. Even if he was in retirement he was going to tell you how hard he worked just to get the acceptability of the international community," Magande said. "I want to appeal to the donors that please they should not completely abandon the Zambians because in Zambia there are people that can be trusted. "

Magande said the Zambian government needed to approach the donors and give them its word and then live by that word and be trustworthy.

Zambia's health sector is funded by several donor countries and organizations such as SIDA-Sweden, Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Commission of the European Union, Department for International Development of the United Kingdom (DFID), International Development Association - World Bank, Embassy of Japan, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Global Alliance Vaccine Initiative (GAVI) and Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM).

Others are the Clinton Foundation, World Health Organisation (WHO), the joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS), United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Labels: CORRUPTION, DONORS, MINISTRY OF HEALTH

posted by MrK @ 6:51 AM