No direct inancial department
MBABANE - “Government has not allowed us to have a fullyfledged financial department that will concentrate on us getting direct financial support and to manage monetary processes in the programmes.”
This was mentioned by Muhle Dlamini, the Eswatini National AIDS Programme Manager, who was responding to why they did not have a direct financial department that would focus mainly on funding and distribution of funds to the different programmes, including the Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision (VMMC programme).
He said they worked in partnership with NGO’s, which at times became a challenge as the NGO needed to also take a share of that funding.
He said the government stated that their organisation was there to respond to HIV when they proposed improving their communication department.
“We have a few challenges and we have been compiling proposals to help us improve on some of these issues,” said Dlamini.
He said that with regard to the circumcision programme, a lot of focus had shifted to COVID-19 and people needed to remember that HIV/AIDS was not over and needed to continue protecting themselves.
The programme manager raised the importance of the media and journalists, adding that they had proposed the idea to employ journalists that would assist them within the organisation but it had not yet materialised, which were some of the challenges they had faced which inspired some of the proposals they intended to compile.
According to recent updates, the VMMC coverage still remains low, at 38 per cent, especially with clients above the age of 25 years. The programme also experienced a drastic decline in its performance during 2020 to date in comparison to the previous years due to COVID-19 and inadequate resources among other reasons.