Atlanta, USA—federal Government has directed all heads of departments and programmes in the ministry to provide details on the use of donor funds in the sector.

Health Minister, Onyebuchi Chukwu, disclosed this to the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, in Atlanta, USA, yesterday, on the sidelines of the Carter Center awards for guinea worm eradication, for which Nigeria won a prize.

“We want to know what has happened in one year. How much came in, what kind of assistance came in, what did we do with those assistance; what was the outcome and what was the impact?” he said.

The minister said he had written to heads of departments and programmes of the ministry, requesting information on the flow of funds “from multilateral partners, bilateral institutions and from non-governmental organisations.

He said that in addition, similar letter was sent to donors, requesting that they “provide information to the Honourable Minister” on the disbursement of funds to organisations in the country.

“I believe that accountability should be mutual,’’ he stressed.

A recent report from the UN-backed Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria had raised concerns over grave misuse of funds in four countries, out of the 145 countries that received grants from the fund to combat the three diseases.

The Global Fund, which has an annual budget of more than 20 billion dollars, suspended grants as a result of misappropriation reported by its Inspector-General in Mali, Mauritania, Zambia and Djibouti.

The report by the Fund’s investigators stated that the fund was also looking into allegations of organised thefts of anti-malaria drugs in Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, Togo and Cote d’Ivoire and their sale in Nigeria, Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon and Guinea.

Chukwu said that he was aware of the reports, but would prefer to “verify the claims from the donors and the recipients’’.