India - Corruption hits anti-AIDS fight
17 January, 2008
A World Bank review has found fault with India’s AIDS control programme. The fear is inferior diagnostic kits may have resulted in the spread of HIV.
by Savita Verma
CORRUPTION in the country’s AIDS control programme may have resulted in the further spread of HIV due to poorly performing diagnostic kits. This has been revealed in a review of the second phase of the National AIDS Control Programme (NACP) which began in 1999 and ended in 2006. The review has been carried out by the World Bank.
The bank investigated five key health projects funded by it. It found that some test kits supplied by various companies “often performed poorly, producing erroneous or invalid results”, potentially resulting in the further spread of disease or in the wastage of blood. Some test kits has been near their expiry date.
Bank officials, who reviewed 217 contracts related to the AIDS control programme, found evidence of fraudulent and corrupt practices in 82 per cent of locally procured contracts. In terms of value, it amounted to 88 per cent of the total money — $2.6 million — involved in 217 projects.
These contracts were primarily for the provision of diagnostic test kits, blood-bank equipment and laboratory supplies.
There were several indicators of fraudulent and corrupt practices, including similarities in the language and presentation of competing bids, separate bidders with the same phone numbers and addresses, the award of contracts to firms that did not submit bids and substantial recordkeeping deficiencies.
While test kit distribution requirements were generally adhered to, inspection and cold-storage procedures were not consistently followed, the investigation revealed.
All this along with the external factors such as substandard facilities, poorly trained staff, and erratic quality-assurance practices could have contributed to the test kit performance problems.
The selection of NGOs for the AIDS control programme was also ridden with corruption. The selection procedure lacked meaningful financial controls and transparency, thus creating potential for corrupt practices.
A total of $72.5 million was allocated for service-oriented activities such as targeted interventions and workshops, a substantial portion of which were carried out by NGOs. Amounts up to $20,000 were disbursed in advance by local-level officials.
“In certain cases, however, these officials failed to track many of these expenditures, putting the distribution and use of these funds at significant risk,” according to the report.
The investigative officials received reports from NGOs that procurement officials demanded and received bribes in exchange for awarding contracts to NGOs. Many of the NGOs which received contracts were not qualified to perform HIV/AIDS prevention services; some did not even exist.
Some NGOs submitted falsified documentation to support the work they were purportedly doing.
The findings were corroborated by anonymous complaints to the World Bank. The bank has now highlighted financial controls over NGOs as a key area of reform in the third phase of the National AIDS Control Programme (NACP).
Similar bungling was found in the implementation of blood-bank equipment contracts. There were cases where a large number of contractors failed to properly install equipment at blood banks, delivered faulty or non-functioning equipment and failed to service the equipment as required under their contracts.
The investigations revealed that in some instances, the government programme procured “what appeared to be superfluous equipment”.
There were other indicators of fraudulent and corrupt practices.
Among them: long delays between the bid opening and contract award dates, unusual patterns in prices submitted by bidders, avoidance of the bank’s prior-review process by splitting to fall below prior-review thresholds, low bid-submission rates, preferential treatment accorded to certain bidders and unexplained expenses and possible self-dealing by the project procurement support agencies.
savita.verma@mailtoday.in
Source: Mail Today
