Participants advocate for more funds for HIV programmes

Participants at a day’s seminar have called for adequate allocation of funds to the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) to support the implementation of HIV programmes.

A report by the Participatory, Monitoring and Evaluation Committee (PM and E) on District Dialogue indicated that the MMDAs solely depended on the five per cent of the District Assembly Common Fund (DACF) to carry out management of HIV and AIDS prevention cases.

The participants stated that the five per cent was inadequate for the MMDAs to perform their coordination, management, advocacy, mitigation and administrative functions as stipulated in the allocation guidelines of the Ghana AIDS Commission.

The seminar forms part of District Specific Analysis Activities project dubbed: “People for Health (P4H)” being jointly implemented by Janok Foundation, a community-based organisation at Sabon Zongo; SEND Ghana, an international non-governmental organisation, the Ghana News Agency and the Penplusbytes.

It is being funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Mr Adamu Munkaila of SEND Ghana addressing the participants urged the Ghana AIDS Commission to revise the guidelines to increase mitigation percentage allocation from five to 20 per cent to enable HIV patients to benefit adequately from the fund.

“This will enable the MMDAs to perform their coordination and advocacy activities with emphasis on their 2016 to 2020 Strategic Plan,” he said.

He called on the assemblies to find supplementary sources to fund HIV programmes and their annual work plans instead of relying solely on the five per cent DACF.

Madam Jane Oku, the Chief Executive Officer of Janok Foundation, expressed regret about the violation of the utilisation of the five per cent by the assemblies and called on the Auditor-General to institute sanctions against them for non-compliance of the guidelines and the abuse of the DACF.

Mr Conrad Parking, the Accra Metropolitan Assembly’s focal person, gave assurance that HIV advocacy programmes would soon start in some communities and that monies would be allocated for effective implementation.