The Union health ministry has ordered an inquiry into the functioning of five projects funded by the World Bank following charges of corruption and systemic deficiencies.
NEW DELHI: The Union health ministry has ordered an inquiry into the functioning of five projects funded by the World Bank following charges of corruption and systemic deficiencies. The probe committee will submit its report by February 10.
The Bank had found the fraud during a detailed implementation review in 2006-07 of the National AIDS Control Project II, the Malaria Control Project, the Tuberculosis Control Project, the Food and Drug Capacity Building Project, and the Orissa Health System Development Project.
The Review pertained to the implementation of these projects, which are valued at $568.6 billion, during 1997-2006.
“We have sent teams to investigate the World Bank’s claim,” the National AIDS Control Organisation’s director-general K. Sujatha Rao said. “The inquiry regarding target intervention programmes which involve a large number of NGOs is very critical.”
“Our teams are zeroing on who is doing what and action is being taken to see only correct agencies are funded.”
NACO says it has already started taking action against non-performing and erring NGOs. It claims safety measures were in place prior to the launch of NACP III in July last year, for which the World Bank had provided $250 million.
“Even though the World Bank has not specifically pinpointed many erring NGOs or specified instances of corruption, the NACO has put in place stringent measures in place to prevent corrupt practices in future. Prior to the launch of NACP III, we conducted a detailed self appraisal and a 100 per cent evaluation of all NGOs involved in target intervention programmes,” the NACO chief told DNA.
Evaluation was conducted during April to June last year following which the number of NGOs receiving government funding was reduced from 958 to 790. “These surviving NGOs had to pass the standardised evaluation on the parameters set by NACO. Those scoring less than a particular margin were kicked out. The NACO is now going to evaluate all these NGOs annually. This evaluation gave us a clear picture of who is working and who is not. We were able to check fraudulent claims and weed out of corrupt, non-performing and inefficient NGOs,” Rao said.
The NGOs were evaluated on their HR policies, financial transparency, quality of services, documentation and reporting, procurement system, and outcomes.
The NACO has also circulated detailed guidelines to the State AIDS Control Societies (SACS) for oversight and selection of NGOs. A separate cell of 20 people headed by a new Joint Secretary is being set up at the NACO headquarters to monitor implementation of programmes and check financial irregularities.
“Managing of targeted interventions is important for NACO and SACS. Oversight of NGOs will be far more vigorous now. Every year in the 11th month a three-member committee will inspect the SARCs and the NGOs for their eligibility for continuation of support or termination. In case they are good they can continue but the poor performers will have no place,” Rao said.
NGOs and people from the civil society will be encouraged to file their complaints directly to this team of NACO. While whistleblowers are welcome, the NACO is also toying with the idea of having a prominent person as an ombudsman who can coordinate with whistleblowers.
“Transparency is the first step to weed out corruption. The same NGOs who helped WB in conducted inquiry could have come to us also. We want people from civil society to bring it to our notice if they find any corrupt practices, officials demanding bribe or any other irregularity,” Rao added.
However, the NACO chief on the issue of faulty HIV/AIDS testing kits, the NACO chief refused to accept problems. “There was no question of inferior quality material being supplied to the states. More than 10 million kits were procured and I agree there could be a failure rate of .28 per cent,” she said.
She acknowledged problems in the Zhongshan kits but dismissed the Bank’s charge that a Chinese food joint, Golden Dragon, functioned at the address given by Zhongshan’s local distributor in Mumbai, Spectra Pharma and Health Products. Rao said the bank’s team did not conduct a proper inquiry as “there are about 30 shops below the Golden Dragon restaurant”.
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