Microsoft chairman and billionaire Bill Gates today pledged an additional $750 million to the troubled Global AIDS fund. The Geneva-based organization has been under scrutiny in recent months after allegations were made that its executive director, Michel Kazatchkine, had misdirected or misused funds. Kazatchkine has since stepped down from his position.
According to the AlertNet article:
Gates, however, played down the problem and praised the fund’s transparency, which he said had exposed corruption problems that might well have remained hidden at other organisations.
“If you are going to do health programmes in Africa you are going to have some percentage that is misused,” he said.
“We’ve looked at where they’ve found money that wasn’t applied properly and how they tracked that … the fact is the internal checks and balances have worked.”
