The two-people mission from Global Fund Secretariat in Geneva Switzerland conducted an official visit to Lesotho from November 07 to 11, 2011. The mission was led by the Team Leader Victor Bampoe accompanied by Fund Portfolio Manager Ms. Patience Musanhu.

The objective of the mission was to monitor annual progress on Global Fund grants’ implementation in Lesotho and agree on the implementation plan for 2012 as well as to meet the key local partners and stakeholders of the Global Fund programmes in the country.

During their visit in the country the mission paid courtesy calls to the Minister of Education and Training Dr. ‘Mampono Kakhetla, the Minister of Health and Social Welfare Dr. Mphu Ramatlapeng and the Minister of Finance and Development Planning Dr. Timothy Thahane to discuss various issues related to GF grants implementation.

The mission met the procurement committee, the Principal Recipients, Sub Recipients, Sub Sub Recipient, UN family and other partners. They also took a field trip to Mafeteng district 130 km from the capital Maseru to see the National Drugs Services Organization (NDSO), OVC house renovation at Korokoro in Maseru and vocational school for children with disability.

Caption: On the left the GF Mission visit NDSO in Mafeteng. On the right the Mission meets the procurement committee.

In relation to procurement, the FPM informed the Procurement Committee members that the Global Fund has introduced Pharmaceutical Country Profile to replace Procurement Supply and Chain Management (PSM) plan. This profile provides data that reveals national strength and weaknesses of country’s pharmaceutical status.

In a meeting with CCM members, Musanhu briefed members on Lesotho’s grant portfolio saying that R2 TB/HIV grants are phased out, R5 HIV is consolidated to R8HIV/HSS adding that R8HIV/HSS completed phase I on October 2011 and awaiting feedback from phase II review panel, R6 TB will phase out in July 2012, R7 phase II is consolidated to R9 Phase I to be Single Stream Funding (SSF), R8 TB will complete phase I on June 2012 but so far only 22% of its funding is utilized as of October 2011.

She indicated that the total money disbursed from Global Fund to Lesotho so far worth US$99million as of October 2011. She emphasized that more effort is needed in implementation of R6 and R8 TB and also the country needs to increase effort to improve the performance of R8 HIV/HSS in phase II.

She thanked the CCM members for grant oversight. She apologized for R7 HIV + R9 HIV SSF consolidation delays that were supposed to start in July 2011. “In some of the implementation the delay was caused by GF Secretariat while in other instances it was caused by PR delay in reporting which also cause delay at LFA,” she added.

Musanhu further added that funds delay is now a big challenge that she attributed to staff turnover at GF secretariat and the change of processes which has now become too beaureaucratic in order to avoid risks of fraud.

At NDSO the General Manager Mr. Matebele Sefali informed the mission that their organization is solely responsible for the procurement of health related goods such as condoms, home base care kits, Antiretroviral, Opportunistic Infection treatment drugs, and laboratory reagents which are all conducted depending on the approval of Procurement Supply Chain Management (PSM) plan.

Mr. Sefali thanked GF for supporting in particular NDSO with10 additional manpower, four vehicles including one truck and three vans for drugs distribution, quality control tests especially for ARVs in line with WHO standards, and insurance of ARVs.

He indicated that 60% of Lesotho’s ARVs stored at NDSO are procured by Government funding, 34 % of ARVs is supported by Global Fund grants, 3% of pediatric ARVs are supported by Clinton Foundation and 3% of PMTCT ARVs are procured by UNICEF in Lesotho.

During the meeting with PR (MOFDP/GFCU) and implementers, Musanhu apologized for the long delay especially of Round 7 HIV grant and consolidation of R7 and R9 HIV grants. She informed the participants about changes of rules on GF supported programs to avoid any risk of fraud or theft of funds saying it is no more business as usual therefore all implementers and PR has to accommodate those changes to ensure the safety of the grants.

Global Fund had for sometimes received negative media coverage on misused of funds in different countries and therefore the board realized it is important to make changes in order to strengthen security at all levels.

“Procurement, trainings and supporting documents were identified as high risk areas for significant number of countries,” she added. Some of the countries are already affected by these changes where GF has changed PR or stop the funding.

She therefore appealed for accountability and to always use supporting documents in each transaction and follow activities as described in the budget and work plans adding that all GF supported assets should be registered and updated.

During the meeting with the Minister of Education and Training, Dr Mampono Kakhethla told the delegation that the delay of payment that occurred in 2010 is also repeated in 2011 where up to November 2011 the GF supported OVC have not paid school fees.

“Some of the new established schools especially in the rural areas were about to shut down while other closed earlier due to financial constraint caused by OVC fees delay. To save schools from closing down, this year, 2011, the Ministry has to borrow the ministry’s budget and pay for GF supported children and therefore put all other ministry’s activities on hold until after funds’ reimbursement,” Dr. Kakhetla explained.

The Minister said if GF will pay this money late, the ministry will not be able to use it on time before March 2012 and therefore it will cause budget cut on the ministry on the next financial year.

The money for fees was suppose to be release on January 2011 with R9 but did not come due to condition precedent for Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of OVC Bursary program which was completed but then at that time R7 and R9 were consolidated and their approval took unexpected time.

All in all, Dr. Kakhetla thanked GF for supporting education sector with vehicles, computers, additional staff and OVC school fees saying that it helped the government to monitor and sustain the system to benefit vulnerable children.

The Fund Portfolio Manager promised to work with the team in GF to ensure the funds are released to reimburse the Ministry.