The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction recently released a report centring on supposed financial mismanagement within the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) has been repudiated by the Ministry. The MoPH rejected all of the charges lodged in the report and said that all aid money has been utilized in a transparent manner.
Suraya Dalil, Minister of Public Health, called SIGAR's report "baseless" and said that there are major gaps in their findings. The Minister challenged SIGAR to prove the accusations it makes of corruption and mismanagement.
The SIGAR reported advised the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to withhold all future funding for the MoPH on the basis of there being high chances of misuse given past observations. The report mentioned that defective accounting and corruption were key issues inside the Ministry.
In response to the report's allegations, the Minister of Public Health assured that the Ministry and its employees are ready to provide all necessary information regarding past utilisation of funds.
"I and all employees of the Ministry of Public Health are ready to provide any information to the government and donor countries," said Ms. Dalil. "We assure the people of Afghanistan and the tax payers of donor countries that all funds donated to the Ministry of Public Health have been spent in the right manner and all records are available."
The SIGAR report requested that USAID hold their aid to the MoPH until it provided a complete account of their expenses. However, the Minister of Public Health challenged the SIGAR to prove their findings.
"We invite the SIGAR to provide us all the evidence and explain how we have mismanaged donor funds," Ms. Dalil said.
As of this moment, USAID has already pledged to grant a tranche of $200 million to the Ministry.
The MoPH said that every year the Afghan government and several private foreign audit institutions inspect the office's expenses, and so far, they have not found anything that would indicate the type of financial mismanagement SIGAR claimed.