Zimbabwe returns $7,3m to Aids group

Zimbabwe returns $7,3m to Aids group

• Aid agency demands Zimbabwe returns $7,3m

• US researchers say they may have found Aids cure

• US government gives Zimbabwe US$18m for HIV drugs

• Zimbabwe to put 40 000 on ARVs

• Circumcision halves HIV risk - scientists

• Tapuwa Dube: where lies solution for HIV?

• Circumcision reduces HIV risk - study

• Zimbabwe claims drop in Aids infections

• Child rapists prey on virgins hoping to cure Aids

• Zimbabwe runs out of Aids drugs

• Mortality report false, says Parirenyatwa

• Zimbabweans live shortest

• HIV decline linked to behavioural change

• Gwindi 'slowly dying of Aids' - ex-wife

• Aids drugs killed Zimbabwe woman - coroner

• Martin Takawira: Zimbabwe: a country in denial

• Zimbabwe hospitals operating below capacity

• Tendai: 'Westerhof can change his name'

• Westerhof hits back in row with ex-wife

• Tendai Westerhof's donor stunt unconvincing

• Third of Zimbabwe teachers HIV positive

• Serial rapist behind bars after school horror

• Martin Takawira: Spare a thought for Maidei

• Frenk Guni: Death by denial, a country in peril

Posted to the web: 07/11/2008 11:34:29
ZIMBABWE'S central bank has returned $7.3 million to an international aid agency that it confiscated last year, an official said Friday.

The agency, the Global Fund, had announced early this week that it would not give any new funds to Zimbabwe to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria until the money was returned.

"The Global Fund greatly appreciates this development which will accelerate the live-saving activities of the malaria, tuberculosis and HIV programs in Zimbabwe," Michel Kazatchkine, the group's executive director, said Friday.

The group's board, which was meeting Friday in the Indian capital, was expected to consider a request by President Robert Mugabe's government for an additional $400 million in health care funds.

Kazatchkine said the central bank had also agreed that recipients of aid from the Global Fund would be able to use U.S. dollars for all transactions in Zimbabwe, eliminating foreign exchange and inflation risks.

Zimbabwe has an extreme economic crisis, including one of the world's highest inflation rates. Last year, the central bank confiscated U.S. dollars being held in local bank accounts, including about $12 million belonging to the Global Fund, Kazatchkine said in a statement.

The central bank earlier returned $5 million of the seized money, he said.

Zimbabwe has one of the world's worst AIDS epidemics, a collapsing health infrastructure and a growing hunger crisis. The country's cash shortages and banking problems are severely hampering efforts to feed the hungry and care for the sick, according to several aid agencies.

The Global Fund, conceived in 2001 when the Group of Eight leading industrialised nations pledged to step up funding to fight AIDS and other global epidemics, is primarily a fundraising and disbursing agency based in Geneva.

Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, blames Western sanctions against his government for his country's economic crisis. But critics point to corruption and mismanagement under his autocratic leadership. - AP
JOIN THE DEBATE ON THIS ARTICLE ON THE NEWZIMBABWE.COM FORUMS
newsdesk@newzimbabwe.com