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National AIDS trust loses sight of purpose

    JOHANNESBURG

    A state-sponsored HIV/AIDS trust, meant to advise South African Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang on treatment policy and implementation, has not met since its inception in 2002.

    It has also come to light that the National AIDS Trust, whose trustees are Deputy President Jacob Zuma, Tshabalala-Msimang and health department director-general Thami Mseleku, spent slightly over US $90,000 of its $5.2 million budget on rent for as-yet unused offices.

    A local newspaper, Business Day, quoted an African National Congress MP, Vincent Smith, as saying, "It is a crime that we pay rent for premises we have not used. Someone should be seriously rapped across the knuckles for under-utilising [the funds], when we can so little afford this."

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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