Rupiah reacts with law than emotion over corruption - Simbao

Rupiah reacts with law than emotion over corruption - Simbao
By Ernest Chanda
Mon 21 June 2010, 13:20 CAT

HEALTH minister Kapembwa Simbao has praised President Rupiah Banda as a person who reacts with the law rather than emotion when dealing with corruption.

Featuring on the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation's Mid Morning programme last Saturday, Simbao also insisted that there have been no new cases of fraud at the health ministry since April last when the Anti Corruption Commission unearthed a K29 billion corruption scandal.

This is against the Global Fund's reaffirmation last week that they had suspended direct funding to the ministry because of continued evidence of fraud.

When asked about government's commitment to the fight against corruption, Simbao said all the leaders in his government hated corruption.

"No, there are absolutely no new cases of fraud at the ministry, whatever has been reported is not true. Ever since we had that case last year there hasn't been anything new. Now, I want to make this very clear to the Zambian people. The Global Fund is an organisation where the rich people pour their money to address HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria. And this organisation is not political, and that's why they set it up so that wherever this problem exists those people should be assisted; whether they are socialists, capitalists or whatever they could be, that's what the Global Fund is," Simbaon explained.

"I think that's very wrong. First of all I would like to say that President Banda reacts very, very aggressively to any message of corruption in anyone. And the beauty again with President Banda he does not react by his emotion, he reacts by the law. He decides let the law take its course, and that's the time when he should make a decision. After the process has happened he takes a decision. Unfortunately people want him to jump the law and eventually they will start blaming him for not following the law. President Banda is not in any way sympathetic with issues of corruption, neither are many of us in Cabinet. I mean, this is something that has broken everyone's heart. Mind you us as Zambians, it has even broken the Global Fund's heart because as Zambia we are about to be showcased as the only country in the world that has used their money properly and realised results in the money."

Asked about the implications of the $140 million that the ministry would not receive from Global Fund, Simbao dismissed the information as miscommunication.

"That is also a miscommunication, there's no money that is going to be lost, I'm coming to that if you allow me so that people will understand. So far the Global Fund has floated nine rounds. We applied for round one, we didn't apply for round two, we didn't apply for round three. We applied for round four, we applied for round five, round six, round seven, round eight and round nine. Out of these we didn't apply for two, which means we applied for seven. We won four of these, we lost three of these," he said.

"Now the structure of the Global Fund is such that there are four organisations involved. The Global Fund itself which sits in Switzerland, then within the countries here we have the principal recipients which are like Ministry of Health and three others: ZNAN Zambia National AIDS Network, Ministry of Finance and CHAZ Churches Health Association of Zambia. These are called principal recipients. In between here there are two other organisations: one is called CCM Country Coordinating Mechanism and their role is to coordinate the principal recipients."

But when asked where the fraud being talked about was directed Simbao admitted that it was at the Ministry of Health.

"Yes, now, when the money comes, for example to the ministry, the money has now reached the ministry by this route I've talked about then we are supposed now to apply it to the programmes which we applied for. It's these programmes when they are about to be done where there's this suspected fraud having happened. So it has nothing to do with the local funding agency, it has nothing to do with the CCM, it has something to do with the ministry and the programme officers that are involved. It's at that level that money can be mismanaged," Simbao said.

On government's current relationship with the Global Fund, Simbao described it as the best.

"We won with these rounds, we got $619 million. We are one of the countries who have been given so much money. We've managed to access $336 million, we are left with $280 million. Now with the fraud that has happened in the ministry, if we don't give our PRship to another organisation we can lose the money because even though we have this $280 million the Global Fund has not stopped us from buying life-serving drugs. Life serving drugs for malaria, for TB, for HIV, that is not affected. That we still use the money as allocated to us," he said.

"Yes, the problem has arisen , and mind you it wasn't government. If government had used this money, taken this money and used it for another programme, may be a problem would have arisen and it would have been very difficult, may be. But government wasn't the problem in this particular case it was just individuals in the ministry of health."

Simbao said because of the scandals that resurfaced at the ministry last year, the government had removed the donor component in the ministry's 2010 budget.

"Yes, we are trying very hard as ministry of health. I want to tell you that what happened last year made us... this year, the 2010 budget as we stand right now it has no donor component, all of it is Zambian money. But it has created now a lot of pressure on us to see how, or what programmes we can do that are very, very particular. As you know for a long time we've had these issue of seminars, conferences, that people are never in offices. Some of them have never stepped in offices, they are from one conference to another, we want to stop that," he explained.

"But again that was introduced by the donor themselves on us. It's them who kept on saying you have no capacity here, you have no capacity and all that. I remember in the 2008 budget we tried to take out that they refused, they said it's our money, so, can we build capacity in your ministry? These are the areas we have targeted: the issue of vehicles, we keep on buying vehicles like, you know, it doesn't cost any money. We were going to cut down on those things, such that the money can be sufficient for the right programmes for health so that we can buy drugs and pay well our workers."