KZN to get Global Fund money by April
CAPE TOWN – KwaZulu-Natal should receive the much disputed U$11,4-million (R92,5-m) from the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria by April and this time around the province will have the full support of the national health department, according to Health minister Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang.
But Tshabalala-Msimang cautioned that the Global Fund had not yet officially approved the resubmitted KwaZulu-Natal proposal.
‘However, I will be very surprised if they do not give the funds to KZN. Their proposal has now gone to the Global Fund with the blessing of the SA National AIDS Council (SANAC), so I cannot see why they (the Global Fund) will not approve it,’ she told members of Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Health on Tuesday.
KwaZulu-Natal’s application to the Global Fund caused much controversy and heated debate last year when the health department barred the province from accepting the allocation because it had not applied via the correct channels.
Tshabalala-Msimang told MPs that the province had been warned on several occasions that it needed to submit its proposal via the country co-ordinating mechanism, in the case of South Africa, SANAC.
‘When the Global Fund was initiated, the various MECs were informed of the correct procedure to follow. All eight MECs understood this at the time, except for KwaZulu-Natal. It is therefore not true that they were not aware of the channels,’ she said.
She said the country co-ordinating mechanism was a channel all members of the Global Fund board had agreed upon.
The minister was unable to explain why the Global Fund had gone ahead and approved the KwaZulu-Natal grant without questioning whether the correct procedures had been followed.
She said that the health department had been ‘sitting down’ with KwaZulu-Natal and had made modifications to the proposal to bring it in line with the overall strategic plan of the country.
Tshabalala-Msimang revealed that she had at first been embarrassed by the huge amounts allocated to South Africa.
‘This while Lesotho, Swaziland and Namibia received nothing (in round one). We wanted to give some of our money to our neighbours, but this has not been allowed,’ she said.
She added that those proposals from non-governmental organizations, which had opted to bypass the country co-ordinating mechanism, had been returned.
‘Some of these proposals will be resubmitted via the country co-ordinating mechanism while in some cases we will see whether we cannot fund some of the proposals bilaterally,’ Tshabalala-Msimang said.
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