Namibia: TB patients out in cold
Close to 600 tuberculosis (TB) patients will be out in the cold by the end of this month as Penduka Namibia shuts its doors because funding has died up.
This crisis comes amidst the fact that Namibia is one of the worst TB-affected countries in the world, with national figures increasing annually.
Moreover, resistance to drugs used to treat the disease adds fuel to the country's TB fire. Penduka Namibia general manager Rudolph Tjaveondja yesterday said they only have funding until the end of December.
According to him, they are waiting for money from the Global Fund. However, this has not been confirmed and there is no indication when this will arrive, if at all.
"We have serious challenges with the funding of our programme.
We are waiting for money from Global Fund, but that has not yet been confirmed. There is talk that it might only come in March next year."
Currently, 567 patients are receiving support and treatment at the centre in Katutura.
He said these patients would need to go to State clinics for treatment, provided they can be accommodated.
The biggest dangers, Tjaveondja said, was that patients might default on their treatment, which could result in drug resistance.
In order to make ends meet for the next three months, Penduka would need approximately N$360 000, he said.
The Khomas Regional Health Director, Sakaria Taapopi, on Wednesday said TB in the country is "an emergency that needs action from all of us at household level, at [the] workplace, at school level and everywhere where there are Namibians".
He described the shutdown of Penduka as "bad; very bad indeed".
According to him, the reasons for the withdrawal of funds are "not so clear to us. Probably, we just have to learn the hard way that these donors give with one hand and take away with another hand dubiously."
In February this year, the Global Fund also withdrew all its financial support to Lironga Eparu, a local HIV-AIDS support organisation, following alleged financial abuse.
Global Fund boss Michel Kazatchkine at the time said: "Transparency is a guiding principle behind the work of the Global Fund and we expect to be held to the highest standards of accountability."
The Global Fund said it was demanding the recovery of an unaccounted amount of US$34 million in some of its donor countries.
Kazatchkine added that the fund "has zero tolerance for corruption and actively seeks to uncover the misuse of funds".
The international funder of projects to fight AIDS, TB and malaria said it "deploys some of the rigorous procedures to detect fraud and fight corruption of any organisation financing development".
Moses Ikanga, the Lironga Eparu board chairperson, slammed the fund, saying the support was pulled as a result of personal grudges against executive director Emma Tuahepa.
Also in February, the partnership of the Global Fund and the Ministry of Health and Social Services claimed another casualty. Pamela Onyango, the Programme Management Unit (PMU) director, was sacked.
Kahijoro Kahuure, the Ministry's Permanent Secretary (PS), gave Onyango the boot.
According to him, she was fired because she used Global Fund money for a TB project without proper approval. He said: "It (the application of the funds) might have been for a good cause, but it was not necessarily approved."
Asked whether criminal action would be instituted against Onyango, the PS said: "No, there was nothing corrupt or fraudulent. I look at that [what she did] as an omission and I had to release her of her duties."
The PMU was set up to assist the ministry with the management of Global Fund money as well as the implementation of its projects.
It is in accordance with the Global Fund's rules and regulations that Onyango had to be fired. "It is a rule-based organisation and everything must be done to the spirit of the organisation," Kahuure said.
By Denver Kisting
allAfrica.com