Political Quotes

“I also support Mr. Fortenberry's amendment which would ensure that audits by the Global Fund Inspector General include information on subcontractors. The U.S. government is the largest contributor to the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. Since the fund was created, the U.S. has appropriated and pledged $3.5 billion for contributions to the Global Fund, representing nearly one-third of the total budget of the Global Fund. It is an important component to the world's response to these three diseases, and has made progress on issues of transparency and accountability in recent years. As the bill makes clear, continued support to the Global Fund should be based on the Fund's ability to meet certain transparency and accountability benchmarks. This amendment builds on and clarifies the underlying text in order to ensure that the audits conducted by the Global Fund's Office of Inspector General cover both primary recipients of grant funding and subrecipients who perform smaller pieces of the grants. These audits are important. I thank the gentleman for the time, and I support the Fortenberry amendment on Inspector General audits at the Global Fund.”