Editorial: Failing to keep track

Saturday, Dec. 30, 2006 | 7:04 a.m.

T hree years ago President Bush rolled out a $15 billion plan to fight HIV and AIDS in African nations and other poor countries, a plan that had some admirable goals, including treating 2 million infected people by 2008 and providing support and care for 10 million patients and orphans.

On World AIDS Day, Dec. 1, the administration reported there were 822,000 people receiving lifesaving drugs, and 4.5 million people were receiving care.

Although administration officials defend those numbers, a series of audits done earlier this year found widespread problems with the program's record-keeping and monitoring. Those audits cast serious doubt on the program and whether it is achieving its goal.

Ambassador Mark Dybul, the administration's global AIDS coordinator, said problems were expected because, in an effort to get services to people quickly, the program moved forward before all the appropriate accounting and monitoring systems were set up. Dybul said the system has since improved. We hope so, given what damning audits by the inspector general's office for the U.S. Agency for International Development found. For example:

Auditors have recommended improved reporting systems so there is a "reasonable assurance that what they say was done was actually carried out," said Joe Farinella, the agency's assistant inspector general.

"It's not good enough for the auditors to hear from the mission that we did A, B and C but we can't prove it to you, or there's no documentation to prove that we did it," Farinella said.

Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., wants a congressional investigation and she should get one. She says, "We cannot sacrifice results and accountability for speed."

She is right. That should be a basic requirement of any government program.