HIV/AIDS Assistance: NACA Begins Monitoring of Utilisation of $225m by States

Hammed Shittu in Ilorin

National Agency for Control of Aids (NACA) has commenced monitoring the utilisation of the World Bank loan of $‎225m released to the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja towards eradicating HIV/AIDS.

‎THISDAY checks revealed that each of the 36 states of the federation and FCT had collected a sum of $5m from NACA from the World Bank loan released to them to fight HIV/AIDS.

Though the World Bank has extended its support for HIV/AIDS eradication till February 2017 but the NACA decided to move out so as to ascertain the level of the utilisation of the financial resources released to states in the country in order to gather more information on the journey so far on the war against HIV/AIDS in the 36 states of the federation.

The development, according to THISDAY investigations, would also assist the NACA to ‎strengthen its strategies for tackling various challenges that may crop up and thereby make the HIV/AIDS to be eradicated before 2030.

Confirming the development to our correspondent in Ilorin, Kwara state capital, on Tuesday, a consultant to NACA, Mr. John Hassan, said, “We took a loan from the World Bank which is classified as a credit of $225m for the whole country and each state of the federation had $5m to implement the project”.

According to him,”It has been implemented over the last four or five years and as at last year November 30 when the project was supposed to close, we discovered that there was still some balance left because of the proper utilization; so, the World Bank extended the project till February 2017″.

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