DR Congo’s health budget disappears without a trace, NGO says



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DR Congo health officials have not explained where millions of dollars to build hospitals and other treatment centers have gone, a public accountability group said on Monday.

The Congolese branch of the global Publish What You Pay network – primarily concerned with transparency in the resource sector – said it had reviewed 35 of the 77 projects funded in the 2019 budget to the tune of CFAF 9.6 billion (over 14 , 6 million euros, 17.2 million dollars).

“We note a very low execution of the health budget, as no project has been fully completed,” he said in a report.

“We had difficulty in following the projects” carried out, “we could not see the traceability of the funds,” said Brice Makosso, deputy coordinator of the Congolese coalition.

The NGO said it submitted its report to the Ministry of Health two weeks before its publication, but received no response. A ministry official contacted by AFP declined to comment.

The money should have been used, among other things, as part of the cost of building 12 general hospitals.

But although the money was disbursed and spent, work in hospitals “was at a standstill in 2019,” Makosso said.

Funds were also allocated to equip dialysis centers in the 2017 budgets, he said.

However, “these centers have not yet been built, and therefore non-existent”.

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