Global Health Fund Finds Some Fraud, Recoups Losses (NPR)
Senior fellow William Savedoff was quoted by NPR about corruption in the Global Health Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.
From the Article:
To get a handle on what the revelations of corruption mean for the fund, Shots called up William Savedoff, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, who wrote a blog post today critical of AP's coverage of the global fund's problems. He noted that the fraud dollars uncovered last year only make up about 0.3% of the total grants it has dispensed – a figure that's probably normal for an organization wielding such a massive budget.
Savedoff has written a lot about corruption in the health sector and says it happens everywhere from the poorest country to the richest country. "There's a lot of money at stake in the health sector, and unfortunately people find ways to steal it from any system," Savedoff told Shots. Indeed, the U.S. government said today that its fraud-fighting during the fiscal year led to the recovery of $4 billion.
In 2006, Transparency International looked at corruption and health in its Global Corruption Report, which Savedoff helped coauthor. The report noted that the health sector is "particularly vulnerable to abuse," in part because the private sector is often entrusted to play a public role in delivering care.
Since that report came out, Savedoff notes, big organizations like the Global Fund have gotten a lot better at rooting out corruption and being open about it. But there still could be a lot more fraud happening than they've been able to spot. "They need to get a handle of how respresentative these cases are," said Savedoff. Otherwise it's hard to know how much of their actual funds are being pilfered.
