Recently, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) suspended Nigeria based on an audit report it carried out. In this report, AJUMA EDWINA OGIRI examines the issues, observing that the report contains a lot of discrepancies as there is no justification for the suspension
Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi), is a public-private global health partnership organization committed to increasing access to immunisation in poor countries of the world. The international organization based in Geneva, Switzerland is involved in bringing together public and private sectors with shared goal of creating equal access to new and underused vaccines for children living in poor countries.
Its model was designed to leverage financial resources as well as expertise with a view to make vaccines more affordable, available as well as make provision more sustainable, by working towards a point where developing countries can pay for them themselves.
One of the beneficiary countries GAVI is working with is Nigeria, whose programme is being managed by the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) and the Federal Ministry of Health where a team of professionals are strategically placed to carry out the programme which is considered to be vital and critical to the health sector. Significantly, since July 2012, when Nigeria signed the Aide Memoire (AM) establishing the terms and conditions of cash grants to it from GAVI and a Partnership Framework Agreement (PFA) in December 2013, the programme has been going on smoothly in accordance with laid down rules drawn up by GAVI. Suffice it to state that the Financial Management Assessment (FMA) and the Aide Memoire (AM) establishing the terms and conditions of cash grants to Nigeria was designed and put together by GAVI.
As part of its policy, GAVI in June this year, sent a team of Auditors to examine the accounting records of its funds to Nigeria being managed by PHCDA in October 2014, it released a 46 page Audit Report on the country specifically on its cash support programmes for a number of mechanisms such as Health Systems Strengthening (HSS), Immunisation System Support (ISS), operational Cost for Vaccine campaigns (Measles SIA, Meningitis and Yellow Fever) and Vaccine introduction Grants (VIG).
The report of the Audit by GAVI team of Auditors queried the procurement method adopted by the NPHCDA saying it did not comply with international competitive bidding process just as it also queried the specification standards and civil works on some of the incinerators sites constructed by the NPHCDA.
But investigation revealed that the team of GAVI Auditors acted as if it had a mindset of the report it was going to submit right from the onset and in the process abandoned the provisions of the Partnership Framework Agreement (PFA) which was signed by both parties and expected to have been followed to the later in carrying out its auditing of its support funds.
Accordingly, the GAVI auditors in its haste to find faults went into areas that did not cover its support funding. For instance, the team queried the purchase of a Generating set by NPHCDA with other funds and as if acting a script, GAVI used its sledge hammer on Nigeria by suspending Nigeria from its funding based on the Audit Report without reference to the Partnership Framework Agreement which ought to be the guide in its dealing with the NPHCDA on the excuse that the overall level of risk for its programmes in Nigeria is high.
But sources at the Federal Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Finance faulted the position of GAVI, saying the audit methodology adopted by GAVI is seriously in question as it deviated from all known auditing procedure and process just as they deviated from their own terms of reference.
It was gathered that the GAVI team visited some of the sites unaccompanied and in the process went to the wrong places. An example is the case with the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) where they mistaken but yet adopted the territory’s Cold room for that of the NPHCDA project that is of higher capacity than that of the FCT.
Similarly, the GAVI team of Auditors, it was gathered, did not meet the relevant people in key positions that were prepared and ready with detailed situation reports and explanation on various questions that were to be raised by the team. This lack of following laid down procedure led to the discrepancies in its Report.
Three classical examples of discrepancies are the claims in the report that NPHCDA did not remit the statutory tax to the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), that some of the companies that carried out supplies and other jobs were not registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) and method of cash disbursement to staff.
Findings however indicated that the content of the audit report with regards to tax remittance to FIRS by the NPHCDA is far from what is contained in the FIRS records. This was indicated by the FIRS to the NPHCDA dated November 6, 2014, with the heading; “RE: REQUEST FOR CONFIRMATION OF TAX REMITTANCES” in which the tax authority in Nigeria stated that its records showed that a total of N237, 621,198.30 on the GAVI Alliance funded project was remitted to it as against the figure of N61, 844, 696 contained in the Audit Report.
Similarly, the Corporate Affairs Commission’s letter to the NPHCDA upon request, for the verification of the status of companies carrying out contracts with it containing about 107 registered companies, was ignored by the GAVI team of Auditors, who came up with a different verification without a supporting document and went ahead to disqualified some of the contractors without stated reasons.
On disbursement of cash to staff, the NPHCDA when asked by the Auditors, explained that it followed laid down financial regulations as doing cash advances is not illegal to financial regulations, and is in line with the World Health Organisation (WHO) practice that pays Duty Travel Allowance (DTA), just as it fits the monetization policy of government where staff are paid their entitlements for outside field works. And curiously, the GAVI team did not bother to ask for the Activity Report of the NPHCDA when they were looking into the retirements of cash advance to staff.
The GAVI team also claimed to have visited some of the states for verification but information pieced together indicated that the state officials never met with them, thereby fueling speculations that they may have met the wrong people and thereby got the wrong information with which they depended on and worked with. Pointedly, the GAVI Audit Report as it affects the states of the federation is not in tandem with acknowledgments from the state managers of Primary Health Care Agencies charged with managing the GAVI support funds.
It was based on the foregoing that GAVI acted as a headmaster in spite of clear breach of its own guidelines. But going by the procedures usually adopted in auditing, it can be said that the auditing of GAVI funds to Nigeria has not been completed. For instance, after the response of the NPHCDA to the queries in the audit, GAVI promised to send back its team three times between June and October 2014 but they never surfaced.
Interestingly but more curious is the position by GAVI, in an email it sent to the Minister of Health said its team of Auditors have been in Nigeria particularly with the NPHCDA since April 2014 whereas they only reported in June. This is the position being contested by the NPHCDA which is desirous to know where they were accommodated and which officials they met, when and where? Unfortunately, GAVI is not prepared to look into the discrepancies and distortions.
It would not be in the overall interest of the children GAVI set out to protect for the suspension of Nigeria, when its audit report is filled with discrepancies as a result of lack of adherence to the Partnership Framework Agreement. What is expected of a reputable international organization like GAVI is to clear all areas of doubts and not rushing to suspend the country unjustly. Let the process be followed and the right thing done in the interest of children in Nigeria.
