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World Bank Aid Terms Criticized

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Published on Tuesday, 03 July 2007 05:21
Four members of Britain's Parliament yesterday accused donors of contributing to poor delivery of services to the public.The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank's insistence that aid should be tied to the trimming of the civil service was killing Kenya's economy and leading to low quality service, said the MPs.

"We are concerned that the IMF and the World Bank's conditions for a small civil service is unrealistic, going by the number of citizens who seek Government services on daily and hourly basis," said MP Andrew George.Mr George, who is UK's shadow secretary of state for international development, singled out medical staff as the most affected.

Third world countries should be let free to run their governments according to the needs of their people, he said.Mr George and colleagues John Barret (Liberal Democratic Party) and MPs Julie Morgan (Labour Party) and Nick Herbert (Conservative Party), are in the country to inspect projects funded by their government.

The team was speaking at the Kisii district hospital, where they learnt that a nurse attends to 50 patients in a day. The MPs were shocked by the long queues of people who waited for several hours to see a doctor."The situation is more or less the same at all public health centres in the province due to an acute shortage of medical staff," said the Nyanza provincial medical officer of health, Dr James Gesami.

The Government intends to reduce its workers by about 21,000. The trimming was necessary to meet the numbers set by donors, said Public Service minister William ole Ntimama.The four MPs are in the country to assess how money from the global fund was being used to fight TB, malaria and HIV/Aids.The rate of HIV infection in the region was on the decline, said Dr Gesami, attributing it to sustained campaigns by NGOs, among them Marlin International.


The MPs who toured several projects run by Marlin said they were satisfied with the expenditure and promised to root for more funds for Kenya."We are absolutely satisfied that the little that was allocated to the Kenyan Government and more so this region, has had positive results," said Ms Morgan.The MPs called for closer supervision of TB patients for faster assistance.