Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2005. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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New Vision (Kampala) - November 11, 2005
Steven Candia
The lifting of the suspension, which takes immediate effect, will see US$360m that had been withheld in Geneva flow into the country to add power to the campaign against the three killer diseases.
The Geneva-based Global Fund on Aids, tuberculosis and malaria (GFATM) suspended five grants to Uganda in August following a damning PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) audit report that unearthed gross mismanagement of funds by the Project Management Unit (PMU) of the Ministry of Health.
Bradford Herbert, the chief of operations at the secretariat, announced the waiver following a two-hour meeting with the Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM) at the ministry of Finance headquarters in Kampala.
The meeting was chaired by the ministry's Permanent Secretary and Secretary to the Treasury, Chris Kassami.
Kassami described the lifting as good news to the country but declined to comment further.
Bradford and two other officials for the GFATM secretariat flew into the country on Wednesday to assess whether the ministry of finance, which is the principal recipient, had fulfilled the requirements for lifting the ban.
In a brief speech before fielding questions from the press, Bradford said the secretariat was convinced to lift the suspension because the Government had "promptly acted in a manner satisfactory to the GFATM and other stakeholders to rectify the situation." The GFATM secretariat, he said, was pleased with the government for taking "a quick and proactive role in addressing the serious concerns that we all shared."
The Government had suspended the PMU, contracted a professional firm to give a fiduciary oversight of the grants, appointed a task force to ensure the continuation of life-saving treatment, developed institutional arrangements for managing grants in consultation with civil society in addition to a commission of inquiry.
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