Twenty-eight officials from the Office of the Inspector General of the Global Fund (GF) are expected in Ghana by next month to conduct an audit into the disbursement of funds released to allied agencies in the country. Since its establishment in 2002, the Global Fund has assisted Ghana's malarial control programme to the tune of $300 million, $200 million for HIV and AIDS control and about $47 million for the control of tuberculosis (TB). All the funds were provided through the Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC), the National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP) and the National TB Control Programme (NTCP), which in turn resourced some state agencies and civil society organisations to carry out programmes in the communities. This was made known by the Country Chairman of the Co-ordinating Mechanism of the Global Fund, Mr Frank Boateng, at the opening of the Third Civil Society Health Forum organised by the Ghana Coalition of NGOs in Health in Accra yesterday. The theme for the two-day forum was: "Achieving the Health-Related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): Where are we?". The forum was a follow-up to two of such programmes held in 2008 and 2009, and sponsored by the Kingdom of the Netherlands and UNAIDS with participants from various health-related non-governmental organisations (NGOs) across the country attending. It is to afford participants the opportunity to deliberate on pertinent health issues in the country and make recommendations for improving the health of Ghanaians. Addressing the participants, Mr Boateng said it was important for agencies and organisations which had benefited from the Fund to account for everything they had received if they expected to continue to receive funding from the body. He pointed out that accountability had become an important and a critical issue at the Inspector General's Office of the Global Fund and, therefore, urged beneficiaries to always do the right thing. In a speech read on his behalf, the Deputy Minister of Health," Mr Robert Joseph Mettle-Nunoo, said the theme for the event was most appropriate, especially at the time that the country was striving towards meeting the MDGs as part of the global efforts to achieve them within the next five years. The deputy minister urged all civil society organisations (CSOs) to have interest in the upcoming 2010 immunisation campaign scheduled for November and said the government would continue to ensure that the policy on free maternal health care was working well and as well put in place other programmes and policies that would enhance service delivery throughout the country. The Policy Officer, Health, at the Embassy of The Netherlands, Mr Theophilus Ayugane, said the theme for the forum was well chosen not because of the apparent difficulties the country faced in achieving the health-related MDGs, but it would help all to take stock, and focus their interventions on achieving results in order to make the needed impact. The Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria" was established in January 2002 to increase global financing for interventions against those diseases in needy countries. It is the largest international donor for programmes to combat malaria and tuberculosis, providing two thirds of all financing, and provides 20 per cent of all international funding to combat HIV and AIDS. The Office of the Inspector General was established by the Board of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in July, 2005 and began work in December, 2005. The office operates as an independent unit of the Global Fund, reporting directly to the board. Source: Daily Graphic