MP : Answer to AIDS fight lies with people

PAPUA New Guinea’s high rate of HIV/AIDS can only be addressed by empowering the people and not by funding organisations, Minister for National Planning Paul Tiensten said.
Tiensten said this when presenting the medium term development plan 2011-15 to development partners of PNG at the Vulupindi Haus yesterday.
He said funding organisations like Business Against HIV/AIDS (BAHA) as their strategies were not alien with reducing the rate of HIV/AIDS in the country.
“A lot of funds are injected in organisations such as BAHA but why is the infection rate still so high?” he said.
He said the organisations dealing with HIV/AIDS should review their strategies and realign with the government’s policies such as the medium term development plan which is specific and achievable.
Tiensten said the use of condoms and promoting condoms was not a strategy or a solution, adding that it was a kind of marketing strategy for the manufactures who makes millions through the sales of their product.
He said the solution was to empower the people so that they make a difference for themselves.
He said so much money had been given to organisations fighting the disease but no results had been forthcoming as the rate of the epidemic continues to increase, adding that the money has not produced any result by containing the spread at all.
The minister also said donor partners should now work in line with the government’s MTDP so they put money where the results to empower the people.
Meanwhile, Tiensten has tasked the media to do an audit of the use of the huge sum of money injected to HIV/AIDS advocacy groups to see how the funds were used and where and how they were used.
He said the media should also investigate their strategies and also find out how effective their strategies were and also see how the funds were used because so far, there had been no result at all to continue to fund more money into those organisations such as BAHA with no effective strategies.