More than 2 billion set aside for vaccination embezzled

Funders of the expanded Programme on immunization complained that more than half of the funds have ‘evaporated’ without justification.

According to the daily Emergence, on Tuesday, August 25, 2015, donors like Global Alliance for Vaccination and Immunization (Gavi), the World Bank and the Bill Gate Foundation, released a report cited some individuals who managed the expanded Programme on immunization.

Although this report dates back to 2012, the newspaper said that it had been behind closed doors until Consupe launched an investigation under the order of the Presidency of the Republic, who had suffered from the pressure mounted by donors.

A source close to the case told Emergence that "donors, who had initially expected that the government opened an inquiry to find out how the vaccination Programme funds were managed, had to lobby for the State to make a move. Quickly, the president of the Republic instructed a mission to unveil the facts.”

Therefore, an investigation has been opened and hearings were made. At the end, a report is expected. A source close to the investigation said that "even if the signature of the Minister of Public Health appears on many documents, we believe that he has been misled.”

The report published in 2012 covers the period from 2008 to 2011 of PEV activities. He stressed that "at the end of our work, examined expenditure stood at 2 522 496 819 FCFA ($5 127 026). The total amount of fraud, anomalies and irregularities identified at the central level and in the regional delegations amounted to 1 815 998 618 FCFA ($ 3 691 054). This was distributed in the following way: ineligible expenditure (8.3%): 150 475 740 FCFA ($305 845); fraud and irregularities (47%): 853 567 715 FCFA ($1 734 894); insufficiently justified expenditures (29%): 526 788 937 FCFA ($1 070 709) and non-justified disbursements (15.7%): 285 166 226 FCFA ($579 606).

Emergence informed that the report revealed a "partial reimbursement made on September 9, 2010 by the Minister of Public Health from the funds of the other party, and relative to wages, fund and premiums of the Technical Secretariat from July to December 2009, which had been paid wrongly on the Gavi Fund.”

Gavi Alliance (formerly "the Global Alliance for vaccines and immunization") is a partner of the public and private sectors on immunization which aims to accelerate progress in the field of vaccination.

The Alliance brings together inter alia, the technical expertise of the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF vaccine purchasing power and financial expertise of the World Bank.