ABOUT 45 000 people living with HIV-AIDS are going to suffer after Government pulled the plug on an AIDS charity that has been assisting people affected by the pandemic for the past 15 years.
The organisation, Lironga Eparu, has been disowned by its main donors, the Ministry of Health and the Global Fund for HIV-AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, after an internal fraud scandal. Government is said to have done nothing to assist the organisation despite President Hifikepunye Pohamba being its patron.The Namibian was informed that the organisation’s board was served with a letter last week informing it that it will no longer get funding.The reasons given was that the organisation no longer met the funding requirements.It was also forced to vacate its offices that had been made available by Government and the Global Fund. At the heart of the decision is said to be a personal feud between Lironga Eparu executive director Emma Tuahepa and some of the senior officials at the Ministry of Health. However, ministry insiders said the decision was made by the Namibia Co-ordination Committee on HIV-AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The committee assesses funding requests and decides which projects should get funding. The Namibian has seen minutes of a meeting where the committee, on November 25, decided that Lironga Eparu cannot benefit from the Global Fund’s funding and that the money should be reallocated to another organisation or project for the duration of the grant period. The decision came after the committee felt that Lironga Eparu had not followed recommendations and procedures as requested. These recommendations apparently included a change of leadership and management at the organisation.It was also asked to change its control systems, after it was discovered that former financial manager Peter Itai had been embezzling funds.Itai was recently sentenced to eight years in prison for fraud.Lironga Eparu in 2008 got a new board and last year laid off all its employees, who were asked to reapply for their positions. New managers were appointed except for Tuahepa, who was reappointed after the position was advertised publicly and an external company was asked to deal with the recruitment process. Tuahepa’s reappointment is said to have angered those serving on the co-ordination committee.It now appears that the committee wanted Tuahepa out of the job before funding the organisation again, after it went without funding for the whole year.Health Permanent Secretary Kahijoro Kahuure, who is also the committee chairperson, could not be reached for comment at the time of going to press.
