Global Fund releases more than $7M to South Africa following request from AIDS organizations

"More than seven months overdue, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria grant will finally be released to key South African AIDS organizations that have been struggling to survive," PlusNews writes, adding, "Some were on the verge of shutting down." According to the news service, "The Global Fund released US$7,106,426.91 to the South African National Treasury on February 6, the same day seven of the grant's sub-recipients delivered an open letter to Minister of Health Aaron Motsoaledi, pleading for intervention."

"The payment, of which US$2,722,555 will be released this week to the sub-recipients, represents about half the total owed by the Global Fund to these community organizations for July-December 2011," PlusNews notes. The news service recounts a brief history of the Global Fund's cancellation of Round 11 funding and notes the "situation was further complicated by the South African Country Coordinating Mechanism's [CCM] ... desire to consolidate the Round 6 grant with its Round 9 and new Round 10 funding, all of which would then be managed by the health department" (2/22). The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), a member of the CCM, expects to receive $300,000, about "25 percent of the $1.2 million that TAC was owed as of the start of 2012," Aidspan's "Global Fund Observer" reports in a detailed analysis of the issue (2/20).