USAID/Zaire needs to develop benchmarks to measure project progress, improve cash management, and increase participant training on its basic rural health project

Audit report covers the period 8/81-9/83 and is based on document review, site visits, and discussions with project personnel. Late arrival of the contractor and (due to imposition of the Brooke amendment) of FY 1982 funds have delayed the project 1 year. Further, failures by the contractor to establish interim benchmarks and by the GOZ to approve a 5-year plan for the Rural Health Zone have made it impossible, respectively, to measure progress towards output targets and to establish specific boundaries and functions for prospective hospitals in the Zone. Due to the failure to select and process candidates in a timely manner and in sufficient numbers, critically needed long-term training is significantly behind schedule, and it is doubtful whether this target will be met. As of 9/30/83, only 8 of the 168 person-months of training scheduled for completion by 1983 had been provided. Although most of the remaining participants will be sent to a Graduate School of Public Health to be established in Zaire in 1984, this does not seem adequate for meeting project training requirements. Short-term training, on the other hand, seems overfunded; due to the use of centrally-funded intermediaries to accomplish this task, only $2,470 of the total of $385,000 targeted has been expended to date. Finally, ECZ controls over counterpart funds and its cash management need to be improved - bank statements at ECZ medical bureaus appear to be unreconciled, several checks were made out to members of the bureau"s staff and to the contractor, and an undetermined and unaccounted for amount of cash was found at one of the two dispensaries visited. Despite USAID/Z and ECZ responses to the above findings, it is recommended that USAID/Z: ensure that the contractor develops a work plan with specific benchmarks and that the GOZ approves the 5-year health plan; develop a schedule to ensure timely completion of long-term training; deobligate and reprogram any excess short-term training funds; and implement its planned program to provide technical guidance in cash management to hospitals.