AIDS Commission expresses concern over low funding

The Director-General of the Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC), Dr Kyeremeh Atuahene, has expressed concern over the dwindling funding of HIV and AIDS response programme in the country.

He said while the national response required about $133 million a year to be able to provide full range of services in the country, it only received about $44 million, representing 33 per cent for the next three years.

“So, we have a huge funding gap of more than 66 per cent for each year,” the D-G added.

Appearing before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament yesterday, he said “failing to provide life saving medicines to persons living with HIV is like having somebody on oxygen and taking off the oxygen.

“The only thing you will wait to see is the person losing his or her life and that is the situation we find ourselves, so far as lives of people living with HIV are concerned.

Their continued existence depends on the daily intake of anti-retroviral medicines,” Dr Atuahene said.

Financial performance

Per the Auditor-General’s 2021 report on the commission, the year closed with a surplus of GH¢2,272,304, representing a 327.8 per cent increase from GH¢531,155 recorded in 2019.

Total income decreased by 5.9 per cent from GH¢13,365,433 in 2019, to GH¢12,575,602 in 2020.

The reduction was caused mainly by a decrease of 56.3 per cent, or GH¢813,187 in the receipts from funding partners in 2020, while other incomes also fell by 74.0 per cent or GH¢53,549 from GH¢72,328 in 2019, to GH¢18,780 in 2020. 

Dwindling support

Dr Atuahene further told the committee that the commission received about $160,000 from the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), through Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

He said the commission had a mandate to mobilise resources to support the national HIV and AIDS response programme as per Act 983 that created the commission.

The D-G said the commission and its partners were currently analysing the financial situation and sustainability of the AIDS response programme.

He said they had also initiated resource mobilisation activities, including reaching out to the general public for donation to support the successful implementation of the programme.

He added that medicine, test kits, condoms, reagents and other logistics were not manufactured in the country.

“We use hard currency to import them and they are very expensive,” Dr Atuahene said and, therefore, urged individuals and corporate bodies to support the national effort to curb the spread of the disease and end AIDS in the country.

“We currently use the USSD code *9898# for the general public to donate to the commission so that we can fill the huge funding gap,” he said.