ISLAMABAD: An audit team of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria (GFFATM) has raised serious objections over the functioning and the use of funds by the National TB Control Programme Pakistan.

The national manager for the TB Control Programme, Dr Ejaz Qadeer, claimed that GFFATM team has only sought certain clarifications for issues which would be removed. Moreover, he said that the audit report has not been sent officially and it is expected that objections would be taken back.

An official working for the TB Control Programme, requesting anonymity, said that the team of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) consisting of 15 auditors visited Pakistan in March 2015 and carried out an audit for the last five years.

“A number of objections were raised during the audit and the management of the TB programme failed to provide records to satisfy the team and the OIG has sent a report informing the programme of the concerns raised by the team,” he said.

According to report available with Dawn, GFFATM provides US $ 129 million annually to Pakistan for eradication of TB. However, the manuals for financial and procurement management have not been updated since 2008 and all out dated accounts are mentioned in the Chart of Accounts.

The report also notes that no mechanism is in place for job descriptions to be updated to match current roles and responsibilities of officials. It says that US $ 713,000 have been spent on the renovation of 10 labs, however details of how much money was spent on each renovation project is not provided.

The report shows that Rs94.5, Rs98.26 and Rs89.9 conversation rate of each dollar is used for the funds received in dollars, which is much lower than the dollar rates in the currency markets. Moreover, there are irregularities in vehicle management, leave encashment and performance evaluation. For examples vehicles were also used on holidays, employees excessively utilised US $ 44,500 for medical allowance.

The report says that two employees in the finance department hold degree from an institution which was not recognized by Higher Education Commission and employment contracts of some staff members were missing.

It was also observed that supporting documents for expenditures were not available. The team also found that tax was not withheld from the payments made to a consultant.

OIG informed the programme that during the review, a surprise verification of vehicles was performed on a holiday and it was observed that vehicles were not parked at office premises.

Moreover, it was observed that individual performance targets were not specified. Staff members, the report says, attended an international training which cost the programme $4,000 but was not included in the training plan.

National Manager TB Control Program Dr Ejaz Qadeer told Dawn that although the OIG has sent the report but it was not sent officially, through the government, so the observations are still open to clarification.

“We have been responding to the fund and missing documents are also being provided. We recieve US $ 126 million out of which procurement of drugs worth of US $ 90 million is done by the GFFATM,” he said.

Responding to a query, Dr Qadeer said that there was an issue with the degree of one staff member but it has also been resolved.

“All the records are available, however, some records could not be provided to the audit team (which stayed for three weeks in Pakistan) because the record was with the provincial offices,” he said.

“We have a staff of 120 persons at the national level which has been performing well. The OIG carried out an audit for the last five years and with such a huge amount of funding some minor discrepancies are always possible,” he said.

Dr Qadeer said that although there are some flaws but there is no allegation of embezzlement in the report.

“An employee who was dismissed from service has leaked the report so it is possible he manipulated it,” he alleged.

Published in Dawn, July 27th, 2015

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