Global Fund releases additional audits as part of internal investigation

Nov 4 2011

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria on Tuesday posted the results of several internal audits, showing "that 12 more probes had turned up an additional $20 million of mismanagement, alleged fraud and misspending," the Associated Press/CBSNews.com reports.

"The fund's board chairman Simon Bland told the Associated Press it has now reviewed about one-seventh of $14 billion in grants disbursed but it would be misleading to extrapolate the percentage of corruption turning up in fund programs," and that "the fund, which has approved more than $22 billion in grants since its creation in 2002 as a major financing tool, is demanding repayment of the money -- and two new cases in Nigeria and India could lead to criminal charges," the AP writes (11/1). Bland told Bloomberg News in a telephone interview on Tuesday, "The Global Fund will not tolerate misuse of funds. ... We're seeing a trajectory of aggressive reclaiming of funds that are misused." According to the news service, "The group has recovered $19 million of misappropriated money so far, most of it in the past 12 months, Bland said" (Bennett, 11/2).