Graft rampant at malaria centre, documents suggest

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Stuart White and Bun Sengkong

Nearly three years after the National Malaria Centre was rocked by a $400,000 bribery scandal, the body remains riddled with graft, according to documentary evidence and Ministry of Health insiders, operating in what has been called a “culture” of nepotism and fraud.

Documents obtained by the Post, along with extensive interviews with several Ministry of Health officials with nearly 60 years of service between them, indicate that mid-level officials within the National Centre for Parasitology, Entomology and Malaria Control (CNM) have used their positions to enrich their family members and themselves with misappropriated donations.

In 2013, former centre director Duong Socheat and another top official at the CNM were found to have taken about $410,000 in “commissions” in exchange for handing out millions in lucrative procurement contracts paid for by the multibillion-dollar Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

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