Investigation in Bangladesh
19 January 2018
The OIG found over US$110,000 of non-compliant expenditures at the National Tuberculosis Control Program (NTP), a recipient of Global Fund grants in Bangladesh. NTP staff falsified mostly training-related documents between July 2015 and September 2016. The fraudulent activities were made possible by breaches of financial management standard operating procedures and procurement rules that were overlooked by NTP senior management. The Global Fund is seeking to recover the full amount as well as ensuring that NTP puts in place stronger financial management controls.
NTP’s head office fraudulently charged procurements for training events, including stationery and publicity materials totaling US$107,000, to the Global Fund. Staff forged signatures; falsified invoices and inventory record documents; to give the impression that materials and services were delivered when, in fact, they were not.
In addition, some NTP head office support employees received per diem payments for district-level training activities that they did not attend. The OIG also found smaller sums of fraudulent procurements at the district level amounting to approximately US$4000.
After receiving the OIG’s findings, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare took steps to address some of issues identified by the investigation, including removing the NTP staff responsible for the financial irregularities from training and finance-related activities. The Global Fund has imposed tight controls on any further training activities that it finances and has already recovered some of the non-compliant funds.