NEWS & MEDIA LETTERS FROM THE PRESIDENT

"Accepting goodwill should not make us subservient"

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Recently the South African media reported that Professor Richard Feacham, the Executive Director of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, had threatened to stop funding the relevant programmes in our country. It was reported that Professor Feacham made this statement because our government was creating undue delays in disbursing grant money sent to us by the Global Fund.

Not surprisingly, this provoked somewhat of a hue and cry from those in our country who have chosen to make the AIDS issue a political campaign matter. Obviously they thought that they had found a credible stick with which to beat our government.

All this arose from a meeting held in London convened by British MPs. Professor Feacham is reported to have said the following at this meeting:

"Our money at the moment is stuck in Pretoria, and we are seriously unhappy about that. We're in almost daily contact with officials in the ministry of finance and the ministry of health about the need to move that money quickly to KwaZulu Natal, to Western Cape, to Soul City, to LoveLife, to allow them to do rapidly the work that desperately needs to be done.

"If we can't move the money, we will take it away and sign agreements directly with the recipients like LoveLife, and send the cheques directly to them. It's intolerable that the money gets stuck in Pretoria, and if Pretoria can't move it for any reason, then we will simply withdraw it and establish direct relationships with the people actually doing the work."

On 25 May, the Minister of Health issued a statement challenging Professor Feacham's comments. She said:

"The Department of Health takes issue with suggestions by Dr Richard Feacham, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, that the South African Government is delaying the disbursement of funds to recipients of Global Fund moneys. Every dollar received by Treasury and the Department of Health on behalf of South African recipients of Global Fund grants has been passed on to the organisations in question. Steps have been taken to secure the second disbursement from the Fund. The only 'delays' in this process are (due to) South Africa's adherence to key principles of the Fund - namely, good financial management and the monitoring of performance. Further transfers of money - in accordance with the grants made in rounds two and three - depends not on the actions of the South African government but on the Fund's own agents in this country."

The statement went further to say:

"The Minister of Health, Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, has written to Dr Feacham expressing her 'surprise and disbelief' at his recent statements. · She has pointed out that they met several times in Geneva last week during the World Health Assembly and that he had at no point attempted to raise the question of under-utilisation of Global Fund Grants. · The Minister has further outlined all measures taken to ensure utilisation of Global Fund moneys and she has expressed the view that time scales to date have been reasonable and justified."

The simple fact is that the funds referred to by Professor Feacham were transferred from the Global Fund to our Treasury on December 19, 2003. By February 2004, all the intended recipients approved by the Global Fund had received their grants.

Accordingly, there was no truth whatsoever to the allegation made by Professor Feacham a number of months later, that "our money at the moment is stuck in Pretoria". There was not even one cent of such money in Pretoria!

The rules laid down by the Global Fund require that before a new disbursement is made to any recipient, an assessment should be made of the utilisation of the previous disbursement. The need to implement this rule arose in the case of LoveLife, which applied for a second disbursement a mere two months after it had received its first tranche.

As required by the Global Fund, the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC), which serves as the country coordinating mechanism for Global Fund applications, proceeded to review the utilisation of the first disbursement.

A complicating factor in this regard is that LoveLife also receives funding directly from our government: however the report submitted by LoveLife did not indicate clearly which activities had been funded by the Global Fund and which by our government. It is expected that SANAC will complete its assessment by the end of May 2004.

Reports from the other recipients of Global Fund grants will evidently be received by SANAC shortly.

On completion by SANAC of the assessment of all these reports, applications for further disbursements will then be made. It is only after this that our government will receive additional money from the Global Fund.

Perhaps we should also explain that since it became operational, the Global Fund has had Three Rounds of applications for funds. The money that Professor Feacham falsely claimed was stuck in Pretoria was the first disbursement of a portion of the sums granted in the First Round. The further disbursements will come from this First Round money.

No funds have been received from the Second and Third Round awards. With regard to these, the Department of Health is still awaiting the inspection by the local agent of the Global Fund, the accounting firm KPMG, which inspection is required by the Global Fund for the transfer of any money.

In the letter from the Minister of Health to Professor Feacham that was referred to earlier, the Minister says:

"May I remind you that when the Global Fund was established, one of the principles that underpinned the work of the Global Fund was respect for the autonomy and sovereignty of countries."

In a note to the Minister of Health, arising from the Minister's public response to Professor Feacham, the latter writes:

"I thought I would send you a note to reassure you that it has certainly not been our intention to criticise the South African Government on the issue of disbursements to sub-recipients.

"In response to questions from reporters in London last week, it appears that my statements about the possible change of Principal Recipients - an issue which has already for some time been discussed with the South African Government - has been linked to answers to questions on delays of disbursements in a way that gave an impression that the South African Government was to blame for late disbursements to LoveLife and other sub-recipients and that the Global Fund was 'threatening' to withdraw money from South African programs. As to the latter claim, of course nothing is further from the truth.

"In further interviews over the weekend, I have made corrective statements to any misunderstanding that ensued from the original interview. I would like to apologise for any irritation and pressure on you caused by the misunderstanding of my comments."

These comments should lay to rest the fake controversy about non-existent delays on the part of our government with regard to the disbursement of Global Fund grants. Further, they underline the importance of what the Minister of Health also wrote to Professor Feacham, that:

"It is always important to establish the facts before statements are made, otherwise we run the risk of issuing statements that are inaccurate, distorted and misinformed, and consequently damaging."

In this regard, we must also point out that the Minister of Health has also written to LoveLife and said:

"I write to express my deepest and utter dismay and shock on the recent statements made by Prof Richard Feacham, of which I am sure you are well aware, on the status of Global Fund grants to South Africa.

"I am not only shocked but also deeply disturbed by LoveLife's irresponsible action in this regard. I say so because it is very clear to both LoveLife and us that Dr Feacham's statements are inaccurate, distorted and misinformed, and it is my considered view that he could not have been provided with the relevant information by anybody but LoveLife.

"It is indeed regrettable to mention that despite the continued working relationship between us and LoveLife, where opportunities always arise for LoveLife to communicate with us on any issues of interest, LoveLife in this particular instance disregarded and disrespected such cordial platform, but chose to go to the Global Fund with such misleading information.

"I must further point out that it is clear to us that this kind of misleading by LoveLife presents critical lessons to us such as that organisations like LoveLife will from time to time use media sensationalism to achieve narrow selfish objectives, which consequently lead to our Government being undermined, as it is in this case."

When we responded to the National Assembly debate on the State of the Nation Address, we cited the example of a US-based rating agency, which markets a political "country risk assessment" of South Africa, based on blatant falsehoods and a frame of mind that "everything in Africa is bad", a racist stereotype to which the CEO of Anglogold, Mr Bobby Godsell, drew attention.

Some time ago, a prestigious global business-consulting firm informed us that the risk assessments of this particular rating agency were used by global fund managers, among others, to decide in which countries to invest. The blatant and hostile disinformation peddled by the rating agency could not but communicate the firm message that these fund managers would be ill advised to invest any money in our country.

Whatever the reason, the view has gained currency that the issue of HIV and AIDS in our country is an even bigger problem than the poverty and the inherited racial imbalances that continue to affect millions of our people. It has therefore been suggested that, more than anything else, our people will succeed or perish solely to the extent that we reduce and contain the incidence of HIV and AIDS.

Accordingly, the statements attributed to Professor Feacham could not but confirm to people who did not know the truth, that our government was wilfully and deliberately engaged in a process that could only lead to the further worsening of the incidence of HIV and AIDS, with the predicted consequences.

The words attributed to Professor Feacham, which indicate that he and the Global Fund are very keen to ensure that various agencies in our country "do rapidly the work that desperately needs to be done", whereas our government is not, reflect the dramatic presentations that always accompany references to HIV and AIDS in our country.

Our country faces many challenges whose resolution requires large resources, among other things. We deeply appreciate the assistance extended to us by many governments and non-governmental organisations to enlarge our capacity to respond to these challenges.

In his comments, Professor Feacham referred to the Global Fund grants voted for South Africa as "our money", to emphasise the relationship between a benefactor and a recipient of benefaction. In the comments he has since denied, he emphasised the power of the benefactor to do in our country as it pleases, and our helplessness to do anything in this regard, because of our poverty.

It is true that we are poor and need the support of people of goodwill. It is however also true that we would betray those who sacrificed for our liberation, and corrupt our freedom, if we succumbed to the expectation of some of those more richly endowed than ourselves, that our poverty should condemn us to perpetual subservience. This we will not do.