The Akuapem North District Chief Executive, Dr Eugenia Dankwa Quist, has denied rumours that she had asked some people in the district to collect 450,000 cedis from each of the Community Based Organisations (CBOs) engaged in the creation of HIV/AIDS awareness in the district.
She challenged people with any evidence to come forward to enable her office to deal with those involved in such negative practices.
Dr Quist was speaking at the celebration of the Akuapem North District’s AIDS Day at Twum-Guaso on Sunday.
She said, 110 CBOs in the district had benefited from various sums of money from the Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC) for the creations of HIV/AIDS awareness in the district and advised those organisations to use the funds for the purpose for which the money was given.
Dr Quist warned that the GAC, the Bureau of National Investigation (BNI) and the Assembly would be coming round with auditors to investigate the activities of the CBOs and any beneficiary found to have misused the fund would be surcharged or prosecuted.
She urged the CBOs to stop teaming up for a programme since that could defeat the purpose of spreading the message to all corners of the District and advised the CBOs to organise their individual programmes.
Dr Quist urged the CBOs to teach the people the proper use of the condom to help avoid its misuse so that it would not turn to be another sources of infection.
She said the disease was not contracted only through sex and therefore appealed to “Wanzams”, barbers, and manicure and pedicure service providers to sterilise and disinfect their tools to make them free from the HIV virus.
Dr Quist said the Government had secured 32 billion cedis from the United Nations Global Fund to put up structures to empower districts to plan local programmes to control the spread of the disease and make the anti-retroviral drugs accessible and affordable to people who are HIV positive.
Mr Amarkye Odoi, Akuapem North District GAC Focal Person, called on the CBOs to render accounts for the amount they received to enable the District to establish a good relationship with the GAC.
Source: GhanaWeb
