Charity Backed by Bono Plagued With Corruption

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GENEVA (AP) — A $21.7 billion development fund backed by celebrities and hailed as an alternative to the bureaucracy of the United Nations sees as much as two-thirds of some grants eaten up by corruption, The Associated Press has learned.

Much of the money is accounted for with forged documents or improper bookkeeping, indicating it was pocketed, investigators for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria say. Donated prescription drugs wind up being sold on the black market.

The fund's newly reinforced inspector general's office, which uncovered the corruption, can't give an overall accounting because it has examined only a tiny fraction of the $10 billion that the fund has spent since its creation in 2002. But the levels of corruption in the grants they have audited so far are astonishing.
A full 67 percent of money spent on an anti-AIDS program in Mauritania was misspent, the investigators told the fund's board of directors. So did 36 percent of the money spent on a program in Mali to fight tuberculosis and malaria, and 30 percent of grants to Djibouti.
In Zambia, where $3.5 million in spending was undocumented and one accountant pilfered $104,130, the fund decided the nation's health ministry simply couldn't manage the grants and put the United Nations in charge of them. The fund is trying to recover $7 million in "unsupported and ineligible costs" from the ministry.
The fund is pulling or suspending grants from nations where corruption is found, and demanding recipients return millions of dollars of misspent money.
"The messenger is being shot to some extent," fund spokesman Jon Liden said. "We would contend that we do not have any corruption problems that are significantly different in scale or nature to any other international financing institution."
To date, the United States, the European Union and other major donors have pledged $21.7 to the fund, the dominant financier of efforts to fight the three diseases. The fund has been a darling of the power set that will hold the World Economic Forum in the Swiss mountain village of Davos this week
It was on the sidelines of Davos that rock star Bono launched a new global brand, (Product) Red, which donates a large share of profits to the Global Fund. Other prominent backers include former U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan, French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, whose Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gives $150 million a year.

The fund's inspector general, John Parsons, said donors should be reassured that the fund is serious about uncovering corruption: "It should be viewed as a comparative advantage to anyone who's thinking about putting funds in here."
But some donors are outraged at what the investigators are turning up. Sweden, the fund's 11th-biggest contributor, has suspended its $85 million annual donation until the fund's problems are fixed. It held talks with fund officials in Stockholm last week.
Swedish Foreign Ministry spokesman Peter Larsson said in a statement that his country is concerned about "extensive examples of irregularities and corruption that the fund has uncovered" in nations like Mali and Mauritania.
"For Sweden, the issues of greatest importance are risk management, combating corruption and ultimately ensuring that the funds managed by the Global Fund really do contribute to improved health," he said.
The investigative arm of the U.S. Congress also has issued reports criticizing the fund's ability to police itself and its overreliance on grant recipients to assess their own performance.
Fund officials blame the misspending on the lack of financial controls among the grants' recipients, many of which are African health ministries whose budgets are heavily supported by the fund. Others are nations or international organizations without the resources to deal with pervasive corruption. The fund finances programs in 150 nations in all.
Among the corruption uncovered by Parsons' task force:
—Last month, the fund announced it had halted grants to Mali worth $22.6 million, after the fund's investigative unit found that $4 million was misappropriated. Half of Mali's TB and malaria grant money went to supposed "training events," and signatures were forged on receipts for per diem payments, lodging and travel expense claims. The fund says Mali has arrested 15 people suspected of committing fraud, and its health minister resigned without explanation two days before the audit was made public.
—Mauritania had "pervasive fraud," investigators say, with $4.1 million — 67 percent of an anti-HIV grant — lost to faked documents and other fraud. Similarly, 67 percent of $3.5 million in TB and malaria grant money that investigators examined was eaten up by faked invoices and other requests for payment.
—Investigators reviewed more than four-fifths of Djibouti's $20 million in grants, and found about 30 percent of what they examined was lost, unaccounted for or misused. About three-fifths of the almost $5.3 million in misappropriated money went to buy cars, motorcycles and other items without receipts. Almost $750,000 was transferred out of the account with no explanation.
—Investigators report that tens of thousands of dollars worth of free malaria drugs sent to Africa each year by international donors including the Global Fund are stolen and resold on commercial markets.
—The U.N. Development Program manages more than half of the fund's spending, but U.N. officials won't release internal audits of their programs to the fund's investigators. Parsons said that has blocked him from investigating programs in the more than two dozen nations, including some of the most corruption-prone.
UNDP spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Sunday that the program's policy bars it from sharing internal audit reports with the Global Fund, but that it is reassessing that policy.
"UNDP does, as a standing practice, inform the Global Fund about key audit findings and recommendations resulting from internal audits of Global Fund grants managed by UNDP," he said.
The Global Fund was set up as a response to complaints about the cumbersome U.N. bureaucracy, and is strictly a financing mechanism to get money quickly to health programs. In just eight years it claims to have saved 6.5 million lives by providing AIDS treatment for 3 million people, TB treatment for 7.7 million people and handing out 160 million insecticide-treated malaria bed nets.
People should focus on those results, said Homi Kharas, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and formerly the World Bank's chief economist for East Asia and the Pacific.
"Without a spotlight, without investigations, and without some sort of accountability, it's impossible to root out corruption," he said. "But just simply withdrawing donations, I do believe, would condemn millions of people who are not involved in the corruption to terrible fates."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap...SYPfiA?docId=eccd6da0cec34b489a67dfdf80cb933b


I'm not that surprised that this fund may be marred by corruption. Some things are just too good to be true.


It makes you wonder if the poor countries will ever see any relief.
 
I think anyone who seriously thought this money was actually doing Africa much good would have to be pretty idealistic and naive. Still, I didn't think the fund was THAT corrupt.
 
BLOG(RED), January 24
Why the AP Story about the Global Fund is Great

Statement from Bobby Shriver:

We think the AP story about the Global Fund is the best possible news. Here’s why:

When we formed (RED), we wanted the Fund to administer the money because we knew the Fund was set up to find the bad guys early. Many other international organizations do not have the aggressive tools used by the Fund. Others find bad guys late in the game. But we knew the Fund would find them and shut them down immediately. We also knew they would publicize their findings, putting more pressure on other bad guys.

So this story is exactly what we knew would happen. We are thrilled.

We also know that the idea of zero corruption is a naive, impossible standard. It does not exist in Africa. And it does not exist anywhere else in the world. Take a look at the banking crisis in the developed world. Does anyone think the First World’s banks have less corruption than the Fund? And does anyone think those same banks would bring their problems to the public via the AP? Not a chance.

We are thrilled that their system has worked. The Global Fund discovered fraud in a fractional portion of their disbursements (less than 3/10ths of 1% of the total money--and NO (RED) money whatsoever) and took immediate action. We applaud The Global Fund for this innovative and entrepreneurial best-practice. The recent Associated Press article highlights this best practice in action and, further, underscores the transparency with which The Global Fund conducts its business (the source for the story was The Global Fund’s own Inspector General’s report).

By implementing stringent standards and by being diligent in quickly addressing issues such as those raised in the IG's report, the Global Fund has made tremendous progress in the fight against AIDS. In just eight years it has saved 6.5 million lives by providing AIDS treatment for 3 million people. We’ve started to take the fight to streets, thanks to the Global Fund. But, we have much more to do. Together, we can end mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS by 2015 and create the first AIDS-free generation in three decades.

Thank you.

Bobby Shriver
Founder
(PRODUCT) RED
Some of the counters here seem a bit disingenuous--"just .3% of the total disbursement and no (RED) money" doesn't mean much without telling us what percent and portion of the disbursements were audited to begin with; also, inadequate auditing wasn't the issue with the banking crisis, and in any case comparing a global humanitarian aid fund's audit of recipient governments to a bank audit seems almost like damning with faint praise. Still, the fundamental point that all this actually shows commendable accountability to donors on the Global Fund's part, and that the value of the successes achieved mustn't be forgotten when acknowledging the disappointments, seems reasonable.

And it's the people who could be (and could've been) helped by these funds we should feel concerned for. Sure, it's nice when Bono et al. get credit for what they've achieved rather than lazy cynicism from the disengaged, but at the end of the day taunts won't hurt him any. He's not vulnerable; his intended recipients are.
 
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Yeah I agree. Still we're gonna have to hear even more crap talked about Bono now. Then again maybe he deserves the backlash for this one.
 
Hahahahaha, I'm sure that damage-control press release from (PRODUCT) RED has been written up and sitting on a server ready to go out for a long time, now.
 
on a more serious note... i hope now that the global fund has been proven to be corrupt, product (RED) can move on to another, more trustworthy charity.

PS_0631_HUMAN_FUND.jpg
 
A full 67 percent of money spent on an anti-AIDS program in Mauritania was misspent, the investigators told the fund's board of directors. So did 36 percent of the money spent on a program in Mali to fight tuberculosis and malaria, and 30 percent of grants to Djibouti

bloody hell can't these journalists write, ffs!! it really makes my blood boil!

(it should be "So WAS") :rolleyes:

[/nerdy moment] :D
 
Why the AP Story about the Global Fund is Great

Statement from Bobby Shriver:

We think the AP story about the Global Fund is the best possible news. Here’s why:

When we formed (RED), we wanted the Fund to administer the money because we knew the Fund was set up to find the bad guys early. Many other international organizations do not have the aggressive tools used by the Fund. Others find bad guys late in the game. But we knew the Fund would find them and shut them down immediately. We also knew they would publicize their findings, putting more pressure on other bad guys.

So this story is exactly what we knew would happen. We are thrilled.

We also know that the idea of zero corruption is a naive, impossible standard. It does not exist in Africa. And it does not exist anywhere else in the world. Take a look at the banking crisis in the developed world. Does anyone think the First World’s banks have less corruption than the Fund? And does anyone think those same banks would bring their problems to the public via the AP? Not a chance.

We are thrilled that their system has worked. The Global Fund discovered fraud in a fractional portion of their disbursements (less than 3/10ths of 1% of the total money--and NO (RED) money whatsoever) and took immediate action. We applaud The Global Fund for this innovative and entrepreneurial best-practice. The recent Associated Press article highlights this best practice in action and, further, underscores the transparency with which The Global Fund conducts its business (the source for the story was The Global Fund’s own Inspector General’s report).

By implementing stringent standards and by being diligent in quickly addressing issues such as those raised in the IG's report, the Global Fund has made tremendous progress in the fight against AIDS. In just eight years it has saved 6.5 million lives by providing AIDS treatment for 3 million people. We’ve started to take the fight to streets, thanks to the Global Fund. But, we have much more to do. Together, we can end mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS by 2015 and create the first AIDS-free generation in three decades.

Thank you.

Bobby Shriver
Founder
(PRODUCT) RED


ahhh never underestimate the power and spin of positive thinkers!

heh is anyone else imagining him saying this thru gritted teeth and clenched buttocks?
 
Do you think Bono is evil?

Why the AP Story about the Global Fund is Great

Statement from Bobby Shriver:

We think the AP story about the Global Fund is the best possible news. Here’s why:

When we formed (RED), we wanted the Fund to administer the money because we knew the Fund was set up to find the bad guys early. Many other international organizations do not have the aggressive tools used by the Fund. Others find bad guys late in the game. But we knew the Fund would find them and shut them down immediately. We also knew they would publicize their findings, putting more pressure on other bad guys.

So this story is exactly what we knew would happen. We are thrilled.

We also know that the idea of zero corruption is a naive, impossible standard. It does not exist in Africa. And it does not exist anywhere else in the world. Take a look at the banking crisis in the developed world. Does anyone think the First World’s banks have less corruption than the Fund? And does anyone think those same banks would bring their problems to the public via the AP? Not a chance.

We are thrilled that their system has worked. The Global Fund discovered fraud in a fractional portion of their disbursements (less than 3/10ths of 1% of the total money--and NO (RED) money whatsoever) and took immediate action. We applaud The Global Fund for this innovative and entrepreneurial best-practice. The recent Associated Press article highlights this best practice in action and, further, underscores the transparency with which The Global Fund conducts its business (the source for the story was The Global Fund’s own Inspector General’s report).

By implementing stringent standards and by being diligent in quickly addressing issues such as those raised in the IG's report, the Global Fund has made tremendous progress in the fight against AIDS. In just eight years it has saved 6.5 million lives by providing AIDS treatment for 3 million people. We’ve started to take the fight to streets, thanks to the Global Fund. But, we have much more to do. Together, we can end mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS by 2015 and create the first AIDS-free generation in three decades.

Thank you.

Bobby Shriver
Founder
(PRODUCT) RED

Now I'm all confused about the meaning of this.
 
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/01/24/133188263/global-health-fund-finds-some-fraud-recoups-losses

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is one of those lumbering, multilateral organizations that dispenses billions of dollars donated by wealthy countries to help those in need.

Since 2002, it has raised and spent more than $13 billion for the treatment and prevention of those pernicious diseases in 150 countries with drugs, mosquito nets, and other help.

Recently, the Geneva-based group learned from an internal audit that $34 million of its well-intentioned dollars wasn't reaching the people they were meant for. Instead, workers in four African countries — Mauritania, Mali, Djibouti, and Zambia — seemed to have pocketed it by forging receipts, documents, and even reselling donated malaria drugs on the market.


The Associated Press sounded the alarm in a story yesterday, calling the levels of corruption in the audited grants "astonishing." In fact, the fund had already made the misuse of the money known in its inspector general's most recent progress report in December.

Today, in a statement, the fund's executive director Michel Kazatchkine went on defense, saying, "The global fund has zero tolerance for corruption and actively seeks to uncover any evidence of misuse of its funds." He added that the organization's fraud controls were "most rigorous" and told AFP it had already recouped $19 million.

To get a handle on what the revelations of corruption mean for the fund, Shots called up William Savedoff, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, who wrote a blog post today critical of AP's coverage of the global fund's problems. He noted that the fraud dollars uncovered last year only make up about 0.3% of the total grants it has dispensed – a figure that's probably normal for an organization wielding such a massive budget.

Savedoff has written a lot about corruption in the health sector and says it happens everywhere from the poorest country to the richest country. "There's a lot of money at stake in the health sector, and unfortunately people find ways to steal it from any system," Savedoff told Shots. Indeed, the U.S. government said today that its fraud-fighting during the fiscal year led to the recovery of $4 billion.

In 2006, Transparency International looked at corruption and health in its Global Corruption Report, which Savedoff helped coauthor. The report noted that the health sector is "particularly vulnerable to abuse," in part because the private sector is often entrusted to play a public role in delivering care.

Since that report came out, Savedoff notes, big organizations like the Global Fund have gotten a lot better at rooting out corruption and being open about it. But there still could be a lot more fraud happening than they've been able to spot. "They need to get a handle of how respresentative these cases are," said Savedoff. Otherwise it's hard to know how much of their actual funds are being pilfered.
 
re. "Donated prescription drugs wind up being sold on the black market"

i just can't see how they will ever be able to stop this from happening...

even if the medication makes it out via the authorised distribution channels into the community to those who need them, rural clinics, where they would be stored, are easy targets for such thefts...
 
re. "Donated prescription drugs wind up being sold on the black market"

i just can't see how they will ever be able to stop this from happening...

even if the medication makes it out via the authorised distribution channels into the community to those who need them, rural clinics, where they would be stored, are easy targets for such thefts...


I agree. Sadly, there will be those who benefit by selling it illegally. And little can be done to stop it. There isn't police or perhaps, government agencies that can keep watch on the meds. The infrastucture in some of these nations is poor to non-existent. Something, which charities have had to struggle with for decades.
 
I haven't got much time right now but I was watching RT, a Russian 24 hour news channel which I can receive and a financial analyst called Max Kieser called Bono "a banker in disguise whose private equity investment group is involved in really nasty deals. Does anyone know who this Max Kieser is?
 
I haven't got much time right now but I was watching RT, a Russian 24 hour news channel which I can receive and a financial analyst called Max Kieser called Bono "a banker in disguise whose private equity investment group is involved in really nasty deals. Does anyone know who this Max Kieser is?

Yes I know who he is. Max Keiser is an entertaining and controversial pundit who makes a living from attacking the financial establishment. His targets include the Federal Reserve, Goldman Sachs and other large banks, and apparently, Bono.

His show has become quite popular in these troubled times.
 
I can see the headlines now:
"Bono's charity fraught with corruption."
"Bono running corrupt charity."

This is going to be painful and sad for all the people who will lose their lives because of lack of donations and medicine. :sad:

Yeah I agree. Still we're gonna have to hear even more crap talked about Bono now. Then again maybe he deserves the backlash for this one.

On the contrary, I quoted my post to retract my own statement. I have seen precious little on this. I don't think it has to do the the Egyptian crisis or anything else. That's never stopped the critics who just want to use the "Bono"/ "U2" moniker to promote their article even if they don't have anything to say about Bono or the band. I don't know the reason or basis behind all this but it's not getting internet saturation.
 
I think Bono started with a big dream and is being mislead by fraudulent individuals. The problem is that he is the face of all these charities and investments, so they're gonna slander him.


Is Bono okay?:sad:
 
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