Global fund wants gov’t to repay for misappropriated mosquito nets

Last Updated on Monday, 25 April 2016, 22:11 by Denis Chabrol

Health Minister Dr. George Norton.

Global Fund is requesting that the Government of Guyana repay them millions of dollars that were allegedly misappropriated by staffers of the Ministry of Public Health under a malaria mosquito net program.

In a report published on the Website the Organisation claims that employees from the Guyana Ministry of Health had inflated the number of bed nets reported as having being distributed and fabricated documents to support the inflated figures.

It said that there was some US$56,966 worth of non-compliant expenditures from the US$42,112,127 invested in Guyana.

In the racket it was discovered that the list of persons that collected mosquito nets contained the names of several celebrities and in some cases repetitive names.

Contacted on Monday evening, Health Minister Norton said the report has not yet been submitted to the Guyana Government but it is expected to be handed over soon.

“They are asking that we pay them back monies that were misappropriated,” said Norton who added that the sum was a very large amount.

He that government has made no decision on whether it will be repaying the monies but found the whole situation to be somewhat strange.

“What we found a little strange is that Global Fund kept doling out monies without doing any checks and balances. I find that to be a little strange,” said the Minister of Health.

Global Fund has also requested that the Ministry of Health improve its record keeping process and to implement a longer-term technology based solution to record the whereabouts of resources.