By FRANKIE EDOZIEN

October 28, 2008

Kampala, UGANDA

In the 1980s, when the disease dubbed ‘slim’ was first spotted in villages on the shores of Lake Victoria, it seemed a stretch that Uganda would one day get her hands around the pandemic that would go on to decimate much of Africa.

And yet for millions of Africans, a beacon of hope has emerged here. In large part, due to the work emanating from a clinic nestled in the hills of this dusty, traffic-choked metropolis.More than 25 million African lives have been lost to AIDS but since its doors opened in 2004, the Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI) has been on the forefront of the continent’s AIDS war.
Founded by academics, the multi-million dollar facility was built to provide, research and first-world patient care.  The Global Fund, and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) are primary funders of its programs.
After being pulled back from the brink of death, many IDI patients are regaining their foothold in society.
“People are well. They are going back to work, they are looking for spouses if they’ve lost their loved ones and they are looking to live life again,” said Andrew Kambugu, head of clinical services at IDI, where operating costs are about $2 million annually.
African doctors are flocking here for training to help them replicate Uganda’s success, and Western doctors keep coming.
“It’s like Piccadilly Circus! Everybody comes to Uganda and everybody comes to IDI,” said Phillipa Easterbrook, who left London’s Kings College run IDI’s research department.
But just a few yards from the ultra-modern IDI with its controlled temperatures, freshly scrubbed floors, and myriad water coolers, sits the famed Mulago Hospital.

Mulago Hospital

The gargantuan Mulago, is Uganda’s premier teaching hospital. Whatever puzzles doctors, they send to Mulago.
Moviegoers might recognize its blue and white walls and lush grounds, since many scenes from The Last King of Scotland were shot there.  From the outside, it seems serene and tranquil like a quintessential place to heal.
But once inside, it turns tragic.
Especially in ward 4-A, the infectious disease ward that feels like a morgue-in-waiting. Patients, who happen to the poorest of the poor, once admitted, rarely make it.
There are hardly any facilities and what’s there, is threadbare. The few ripped, paper-thin mattresses, that seem to be four decades old, propped on aging rusty metal beds aren’t available for all.  There aren’t any sheets or even pillows and so some make do with the concrete floor.
Oxygen tanks, sit there not functioning. Drip stands? There are a few that are barely working.
There aren’t drapes on the windows, so birds routinely fly in. And the walls appear not to have been repainted since 1962 when the hospital opened by the Duchess of Kent with working faucets and proper lighting.
On any given night, one single nurse has to take care of some 50 to 80 patients, whose families simply resort to prayer.  When young expatriates come to IDI, and then volunteer at Mulago with AIDS and tuberculosis patients, that grim reality knocks them for a loop.
And some decided ‘enough was enough.’

Dr Shevin Jacob

“We just decided we weren’t going to take it anymore,” said Shevin Jacob, 32, from Chicago. He and other colleagues  asked IDI’s director, Alex Coutinho to visit the nearby ward.  Coutinho did and left his plush office into to see what had become of 4-A.

Over the years many Uganda physicians have trained at the infectious disease ward but hardly get to return and so the thinking among some is that few know how bad it has deteoriated.

“He probably hadn’t been here since his student days,” Jacob added.

Despite millions in donor funding for miracle drugs, Uganda’s entire health care system is challenged.  Mulago is mandated to give care at low cost and the 800-bed facility routinely faces 1,000-plus patients who need admission daily.
“Patients deserve their dignity, regardless of income,” said Mohammed Lamorde, a physician/researcher, who left Nigeria to settle in Kampala because of IDI.
Yet many doctors cannot reconcile the flush facilities of the Infectious Disease Institute and the decrepit infectious disease ward at Mulago.
Even though dusty dirt roads lead up to the IDI campus, its labs are only one of three certified by College of American Pathologists (CAP) in Africa.  Officials were elated when they were picked as the second runner up in the annual ‘Lab of the Year’ 2008, by Medical Lab Observer, an industry trade publication.
“Have you seen how much bottled water we have? And just across the way patients are starving. What’s this supposed to do to our mental health?” fumes one doctor.
By April, after the quiet but steady and forceful complaints from several staffers, IDI brass settled on a ‘4-A project.’  An appeal to donors to funnel some funds to the ward was instituted. 4-A has been adopted by IDI.
Officials say $122 could get life saving medicine for four patients for a week, $600 would get them an oxygen system; $1,223 could get a new hospital bed; and $12,232 for a total renovation. Money has begun to come in.
Jacob who decided to take position at a Seattle hospital last summer, vows to follow up on the progress.

“I will be back to see it through.”

This report is supported by the Project for International Health Journalism Fellowship Program as part of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation’s Media Fellowships Program.  Edozien is the director of New York University’s ‘Reporting Africa’ program.

Useful links
IDI:  www.idi.ac.ug
Mulago: www.mulago.or.ug
Donations can be made by contacting idi_communications@idi.co.ug

Fight Against AIDS in East Africa

WORLDPRESS

By Frankie Edozien, October 1, 2008

KAMPALA, Uganda: For the millions of Africans dealing with HIV/AIDS, a beacon of hope has emerged from an unassuming single story clinic, nestled in the hills of this city.

Since its doors were open in 2004, the Infectious Disease Institute (IDI) has been on the forefront of Africa’s response to the pandemic, quietly and methodically conducting scores of clinical trials while treating thousands.

IDI and its staff have proved through their outreach, and treatments that high-quality care can be given without having to build brick-and-mortar infrastructure in every rural area.

And the friends _ as the patients there are called _ are regaining their foothold in society, living healthier, with their heads held high and some even heading back to the workplace after being pulled from the brink of death.

“When this clinic started in a small room, a HIV clinic was a specter of a lot of depression and sadness, people laying on the floors. Now as you will see it’s a vibrant population,” said Andrew Kambugu, IDI’s head of clinical services.

“People are well, they are going back to work, they are looking for spouses if they’ve lost their loved ones and they are looking to live life again. For me as a young African professional I think there are fewer places that give more satisfaction,” the doctor, 35, added.

IDI’s success in rolling out anti-retroviral therapies while simultaneously conducting high level research work began as dream. American and African Academicians wondering how to deal with Africa’s AIDS crisis, came up with the idea to open up a state-of-the-art regional center of excellence to serve the continent.

Thus the Academic Alliance for AIDS care and prevention in Africa was born. The Alliance got the Pfizer foundation to pony up funds for the building and operational cost for the first few years and IDI opened it’s doors in 2004. It cost $2 million a year to operate.

Article Continues

When we came here in 2001, it was very clear that we would never be able to accomplish the vision with the physical infrastructure that was here at the time,” said W. Michael Scheld, a medical professor at the University of Virginia who has been involved with IDI since it was an idea.

“We had the [nearby] Mulago clinic but it was only open a half day at a time. They saw about 100 patients a day and almost no one ever came back because there was nothing to offer.”

Today thousands are treated, given medication, taught new activities to help them generate income, and most are smiling on any given day you find them at IDI. Indeed the miracle drugs paid for by the Global Fund; the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) are partly responsible.

But anti-retrovirals (ARVs) were just the beginning.

“Two and a half years ago, we had trouble in the waiting area. It was a very stigmatizing environment. Friends (patients) would come in and hide in the waiting area. Not wanting to be noticed. Some of them would actually cover their heads. There was a lot of stigma in that waiting area,” said Caleb Twijukye, 32, coordinator of IDI’s creativity initiative.

“So we saw a need to start something that would engage those friends and something to fight that stigma. We began by creating communes in those waiting rooms.” Music, games, spiritual healing, sharing, each patient found a place to perk up.

“They come in now dance and sing, and they happy. By the time they get in to that doctor’s room they are already happy and treated. It really works,” Twikujye added.

IDI, at its core is a clinical research facility that holds its own with other such facilities the world over, despite being smack in the middle of a relatively poor country in East Africa. Dusty dirt roads lead up to the hills where IDI is yet, its laboratories are only one of three College of American Pathologists (CAP) certified on the continent.

Stepping into the sterile environment with its international cadre of medical professionals, its easy feel like one is in a Western capital.

“We’re not here to train Europeans or North Americans to have their African experience,” insists Phillipa Easterbrook, the head of research.

Easterbrook is a medical professor who took a leave from Kings College in London to work at IDI.

“We are here to train the next generation of clinicians, teachers, researches in sub-Saharan Africa. The era of scientific projects emanating from the West with Africa being the receptacle is ending.

“It will be us in sub-Saharan Africa saying these are the questions we want to ask together. We will write the grants, we will do the programs, we will do the analyses, we will write the papers. And that’s the spirit I’m trying to engender in IDI.”

In just a few years, 27 African nations have sent close to 2,000 medical professionals to be trained in the latest in HIV care. Yet some trainees have come from Europe and Asia.

IDI insists that those it trains go to their home country and trains others. They keep regular communications and have staff waiting to take queries about difficult cases.

Taking a short break from one of the intensive month long training sessions, Zambian physician, Patrick Makelele, said he was drawn to IDI by the caliber of clinicians lecturing.

“My expectation is to update my skills in ART management, get the latest if there is any and also to learn from the huge experience of Uganda,” he said. “I wanted to know more [see] what is going on, on the ground … realize my gaps.”

Nigerian military physician, Nathan Okeji, said he planed to return to his home facility and turnover how he’d been doing things.

“I’m very impressed with what I’m seeing here, I think we are going to bring an entirely new face to HIV management in Nigeria especially among the military,” the doctor said. He said he immediately wants to begin testing infants born of HIV positive mothers at six weeks rather than wait 18 months as he’d been doing.

“The standard here is exactly almost what I’ve been seeing going abroad the in the UK or USA. As far as I’m concerned the USA is now here in Uganda.” He also plans to use an IDI inspired method of shifting medical tasks to competent nurses.

“The doctors are doing everything and we are overwhelmed. We are seeing about 40-something patients, daily. You go from your house to the hospital. Then you are fagged out and you go to bed.”

Easterbrook who has brought a strong focus on epidemiology to all staff and trainees at IDI insists that Africa is the place to get answers for HIV now.

“My role is to really make sure we’ve crossed every ‘t’ and dotted every ‘i’, in having a rigor in our procedures that rival those in North America and Western Europe.”

Yakari Manabe, a doctor from John Hopkins Medical school decamped to Kampala to run the labs here, said simply that “IDI has the ability to answer questions that cannot be answered in the states.”

The New Jersey doctor added that: “If you want to look at HIV and tuberculosis co-infection and understand better the collision of those two infections and the devastating epidemic that comes from it, it is best done in places like this.”

While IDI serves some 10,000 friends, it has partnered with Kampala clinics and heads out to different clinic sites ach week to treat hundreds of other patients.

“My dream is maybe to see a negative generation. A new, negative, generation,” said Zam Nakawooya, 35, a former teacher now peer counselor at IDI.

IDI is part of my life now,” added Peter Kamlimba, 38. “I can’t relate it to anyplace. This is where I found my life. I’d lost my life and now I’ve gained my life again. I’m strong, I’m healthy, I can do anything.”

For IDI’s board, the goal is to replicate its success across the continent. Already similar centers of excellence are planned for Ethiopia and Nigeria.

This report is supported by the Project for International Health Journalism Fellowship Program as part of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation’s Media Fellowships Program

Copyright © 1997-2008 Worldpress.org. All Rights Reserved.

Uganda’s ban on homosexuality is playing out in the private sector, with a local branch of the U.K.-based Standard Chartered Bank denying account access to a trans activist                                                  

By Frankie Edozien

Imagine walking into any major commercial bank, opening a checking or savings account, and then days later being told that your account has been frozen. And oh, by the way, since you’re gay and you work for a gay organization, our bank has a problem with you, and you will not be getting your paychecks deposited into that account.

An unlikely scenario? For most people in the West, yes, but that’s exactly what Juliet Victor Mukasa, a female-to-male transgender activist, says happened to him at a Kampala, Uganda, bank in March.

For all its breathtaking natural beauty and delightfully hospitable and charming citizenry, Uganda is still a place where being openly gay can turn this East African equator nation from paradise into a nightmare.

Homosexuality is criminal in this pearl of Africa. It’s been on the books for ages, with the penal code stipulating that “any person who has carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature” to being hauled into prison. It dates back to the penal provisions imposed during the era of British colonialism and was strengthened in 1990 to increase the penalty from 14 years to life.

Yet while these laws remain in force, Uganda has introduced democratic reforms and improved its human rights record since Yoweri Museveni became president in 1986.

Mukasa, 32, a research and policy analyst for the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, was born female but now identifies and expresses himself as a male, routinely eschewing skirts for pants. He is cofounder and first chairperson of the Sexual Minorities Uganda group.

In 2005 his home was raided and he went into hiding. Then he did an about-face and sued the government for trampling on his rights by raiding his home without a search warrant and arresting his guests. A judgment is expected in that case soon.

But years after the incident, Mukasa went to Standard Chartered Bank — an international bank based in London but with branches and subsidiaries all over Africa and Asia — to open an account.

As at most banks, staff members greeted him courteously and said there would be no problems when he told them where he worked. The account application required him to mention both his current and previous employers.

“I work for the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. Could I still have an account here?” Mukasa recounted to The Advocate. “‘Of course, this is an international bank and we don’t discriminate. Just write it,’ was the bank’s officials response.”

Mukasa said he wrote his current employer, IGLHRC, in the blank space and for the question that required his previous employer followed, he wrote, “Sexual Minorities Uganda.”

The adviser made a copy of Mukasa’s passport, took photographs, and asked him to sign a document, then told him to return the following day, a Saturday, with passport photos and the money to be deposited.

The next day, Mukasa recalled, “The adviser took my photos and told me to go pick a deposit slip, fill it and deposit the money that I had. At the top of my completed slip he wrote something like ‘Account open…’ and signed it.”

An elated Mukasa skipped out of the Kampala branch, located in one of the city center skyscrapers, dancing for joy.

The following day he went back and deposited 500,000 Ugandan shillings (about $302) and was asked to come back the following week to apply for a Visa debit/ATM card.

“I told a couple of friends about it, how great SCB is, and I even showed them the deposit slip. They were all happy for me,” he recalls.

But the joy was short-lived. When Mukasa went in to complete the Visa application process, a bank officer took him aside with the original officer who helped open the account and told him there was a problem.

He recalls an official saying, “The account opening process goes through so many hands. Your application form got to some bosses who were not OK with it.” Mukasa asked what was wrong with his application and at first the official failed to explain. “I helped him by asking, ‘Is it because of the fact that I work with the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission and am a gay person myself?’ He answered in the affirmative.”

Mukasa took his case up the chain even asking for a meeting with the local CEO but the account remained closed.

SCB Uganda’s corporate affairs manager, Herbert Zake, in an April interview in his sky-high office overlooking the Kampala metropolis, stressed the bank’s community involvement over the past year: schools built in rural areas; the commitment to ending blindness by paying for cataract surgeries at $277 a pop; drilling boreholes for rural communities at a cost of $80,000 — some people have to walk 10-15 kilometers to get water and it may still be contaminated; and large-scale refurbishments of high school facilities in the capital city.

The company is even leading an effort to end stigma among those affected by HIV or AIDS by offering complimentary voluntary testing and providing a supportive environment to HIV positive employees.

But when asked about why a company that was such an outstanding corporate citizen in many ways for Ugandans and Africans at large, was denying an account to a lesbian, Zake appeared stunned by the question for a moment.

And then says, “She indicated that the money was coming from a gay and lesbian human rights organization … it [homosexuality] is illegal here.”

When pressed on whether national statute against gay actions affected whether gays could have bank accounts, Zake’s response was that the matter “is open to interpretation.” The executive then insisted that he would get clarity on the matter and forward a response to this reporter.

In May, when The Advocate contacted SCB’s parent company, officials in the United Kingdom declined to speak publicly about that one case, but insiders pointed out that the bank has a history of opening in culturally challenging locations.

While the mammoth $50 billion bank has branches in 13 African countries, it also operates in the Middle East, including Iraq, and in Afghanistan. In Middle Eastern locations where it might be difficult for both sexes to mingle openly, it has had to open banks primarily for women.

“We have a very strong ethos of diversity and inclusion in the bank and do not discriminate against customers on the grounds of sexual orientation, or gender or race, for that matter,” insists Tim Baxter, Standard Chartered’s London-based head of external communications.

The problem wasn’t SCB’s, but local law that officials feel they must comply with. Since IGLHRC promotes equality for sexual minorities, and activities of such minorities are illegal in Uganda, that puts SCB in an untenable position, insiders say.

“We operate in more than 70 countries with many different cultures and fully comply with all local laws and regulations,” Baxter says.

SCB officials say they have many senior gay and lesbian employees and try to work within the restrictions of local governments to provide retail financial services for all.

In the meantime, Mukasa has to make do with having friends who can lend a hand — or a bank account.

“IGLHRC wires my salary to a friend’s account. This is not comfortable for me. This makes me feel horrible … I am very frustrated. This place is becoming a stranger land for me every day.”

As the dust settles on the California Supreme Court’s marriage ruling, the question arises: Are we about to re-live the divisive political battles of the 2004 election?

The Massachusetts court ruling came down in late 2003, and by Valentine’s Day 2004, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom had opened City Hall to LGBT couples, giving marriage licenses until they were halted a month later by the same court that Thursday determined gays have the right to marry. That was all it took for President Bush and the GOP to make gay marriage a wedge issue, sparking passions on both sides of the issue, and driving conservatives to the polls. Remember the push for a federal marriage amendment?

Past is prologue. So far a million-plus signatures have been gathered to put a ballot amendment before California voters this fall to overturn the marriage-equality decision. And if the pending marriage-equality case before Connecticut’s highest court is resolved in favor of marriage equality — a decision is expected soon — there’s little doubt that gay marriage will become a factor in November’s election.

Republicans, says Ken Sherrill, a political science professor at New York City’s Hunter College, “have to do something to energize their base. The economy is in the toilet; the war is generally believed not to be going well.” However, he cautions, if Republicans turn marriage equality into a political football, they might not get any play. “The fact that a campaign or campaign supporters push certain buttons doesn’t mean that they are going to resonate with the voters,” he says, pointing to the special House election in Mississippi, which was won by a Democrat this week. “They ran these Obama–Reverend Wright ads, and it went over like a lead ball.”

As the marriage ruling made news, both the Obama and Clinton campaigns issued careful, nearly identical statements of support and respect for the decision — but also restated their commitment to civil unions, saying matrimony should be left up to individual states to decide. Republican presidential nominee John McCain, however, has yet to make a statement on the ruling.

According to Patrick Sammon, president of the Log Cabin Republicans, America is in a far different place now than it was four years ago. He notes that many jurisdictions have enacted partnership rights in the intervening years, and “voters have seen the sky hasn’t fallen,” he says. “They have gotten wise to the fact that some politicians tried to use divisive social issues to get votes,” adding he doesn’t believe gay marriage will figure as prominently in the current presidential contest. The evidence? Five GOP senators who highlighted the issue in their campaigns were booted from office in 2006, Pennsylvania’s relentlessly anti-gay Rick Santorum among them. Voters simply have other concerns at this moment in our country’s history, Sammon says, especially given that McCain is seeking to be competitive in states not traditionally Republican. That means coaxing votes from independents and some Democrats who may be alienated by too stern a tone on marriage equality.

As Sherrill says, if McCain or fellow Republicans bring the issue up, “you can expect the Democrats to run a campaign that says ‘don’t get distracted by this issue when the real issue is putting food on your table.’ ” (Frankie Edozien, The Advocate)

By FRANKIE EDOZIEN

April 4 2008 - Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday that he had no idea the city budget allocated millions of dollars to phantom organizations at the request of Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s office - and that he would never have signed off on the spending plan had he known. April 4, 2008 — “This is the first I’ve heard of it . . . There’s an investigation, and until I see the results of the investigation, I really can’t comment,” Bloomberg said yesterday when asked about The Post’s front-page report.

When pressed about the revelations funds for dozens of sham groups - including the “Immigration Improvement Project of New York” and the “Association of Community Partners” - were slipped into the budget, Bloomberg said:

“If I found there were fake organizations in there, do you really think that I would sign the budget? Thank you very much. I would hope you’d expect a little more from me, for goodness sake.”

The mayor didn’t attack Quinn for the practice, calling her “the most honest person I know.”

The Post yesterday detailed how Quinn’s office hid millions in taxpayer dollars by allocating them to nonexistent organizations as a way of holding on to funds to dole out later in the year after the budget had been passed.

Sources said those monies were eventually awarded to legitimate groups as political favors to council members, but Quinn, who intends to run for mayor next year, insisted the funds were used to correct mistakes and oversights.

City Comptroller Bill Thompson, also a potential mayoral candidate next year, said that the report raised “serious concerns” and that such actions “would represent a breach of public trust.”

The shady bookkeeping is now the subject of probes by the city Department of Investigation and the US Attorney’s Office.

“We can confirm that the listing under fictitious organizations has gone back to 2001,” Quinn told reporters yesterday.

Late yesterday, Quinn released records that show the practice started with five fake groups totaling $1.1 million.

By fiscal year 2007, it had ballooned to 18 groups and amounted to about $3.6 million.

Quinn and her aides have said that the money was eventually awarded to dozens of legitimate groups across the city and that there were no allegations that those organizations did anything improper.

Quinn said that she ordered her staff several months ago to halt the practice of listing sham groups in the budget but that her aides disobeyed her and continued it.

Quinn’s predecessor as speaker, Gifford Miller, under whose watch the practice expanded, didn’t return calls for comment.

But the prior speaker, Peter Vallone of Queens, whose last budget in 2001 included funding for several nonexistent groups, said he knew nothing about it.

“To use a false name? That never went on when I was there . . . It’s a complete surprise to me,” Vallone told The Post.

Quinn’s potential mayoral rival, Tony Avella (D-Queens), blasted the speaker.

“It is absolutely disgraceful that we’re using phony organizations to set aside money that could be later used down the road for political bribery,” he said.

Councilman Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn), a frequent Quinn nemesis, said: “I find it hard to believe that it was just staff. It is illogical to think she didn’t know about this because she has to use the money.”

But Councilman Simcha Felder (D-Brooklyn) said he didn’t have much of a problem with Quinn’s aides reserving funds for unforeseen expenses.

“In this case, the only thing that’s terribly wrong is the bogus organizations. That’s all,” Felder said.

Felder added that there has to be “a reserve fund when things come up that were not anticipated to be able to help organizations that are in desperate need of money just because somebody made a clerical error.”

Betsy Lyman of the Citizens Budget Commission said the allocations to phantom groups “flies in the face of good government,” especially since Quinn has made an issue of making the budget more transparent to the everyday New Yorker.

Dick Dadey, of the Citizens Union, an organization that has long lauded Quinn’s reform proposals, agreed, saying, “This problem is inconsistent with her efforts as budget reformer.”

Meanwhile, Quinn said she was “not the target” of the investigations and insisted she blew the whistle by telling investigators as soon as she discovered it.

“I stand by the fact that there has never been a council speaker who has been as committed to transparency and clarity in the city budget as I have been,” she said.

Quinn said she was shocked that her instructions were ignored.

“The vast majority of the people who work for me are dedicated public servants who implement the wishes of myself and my colleagues . . . so obviously it’s the last thing I would expect that a direct and clear instruction would not be followed.”

QUINN OFFICE PROBED OVER BOGUS GRANT GROUPS

EXCLUSIVE

By FRANKIE EDOZINN

April 3, 2008 — City Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s office hid millions of taxpayer dollars by allocating grants to phantom organizations as a way of holding the funds to dole out political favors later - bogus bookkeeping that is the subject of city and federal probes, The Post has learned. Among the dozens of fabricated groups that were slated to receive funds were the “Immigration Improvement Project of New York” ($300,000), the “Coalition for a Strong Special Education” ($400,000) and the “American Association of Concerned Veterans” ($422,7The total amount set aside in 2007 and 2008 for the fake organizations - which are each listed by name in the city budget after being inserted at the council’s request - was $4.7 million. In the two years, 30 phantom groups were listed, council aides confirmed.

The money, in effect, became a slush fund for the speaker and was later used at Quinn’s discretion to reward groups that were loyal to her and to fund favored council members’ pet projects, sources told The Post.

The scheme gave “the speaker a stash of cash with which to thank or pay off politically important allies or cooperative council members,” a source said.

Quinn insisted in an interview yesterday with The Post that all of the taxpayer funds were ultimately used for legitimate purposes.

The never-before-exposed practice of hiding the funds dates to 1988, council aides said last night.

“It was used at the speaker’s discretion,” said an insider who worked for the council at the time it was headed by Quinn’s predecessor, Gifford Miller. “People would come in and say ‘We need money for this or that.’ ”

Sources said it may have been started to make an end run around the City Charter, which requires that all funds be allocated at the start of the fiscal year. That limits the speaker’s ability to dole out monies throughout the year as needs arise.

In the interview, Quinn, who plans to run for mayor next year and has made “transparency” in budgeting one of her pet causes, admitted she knew some funds were being held in reserve, but learned only several months ago they had been allocated to sham organizations.

Quinn said she ordered that the shady practice be abolished and only recently discovered her staff had not complied.

“I was kind of sick over the fact that there were things listed in the budget that were not accurate and that my instructions to the staff were disregarded,” Quinn told The Post.

When she learned several months ago that the practice had continued, Quinn said she turned over information about the bogus bookkeeping to “appropriate authorities,” including the city Department of Investigation and the Manhattan US Attorney’s Office.

Quinn’s aides insist she blew the whistle on the practice, but authorities have been investigating some aspect of the council’s finances since last year, sources have said.

Quinn recently hired an outside law firm to help comply with requests from investigators for documents and information dating back several years.

In a development that sources said was tied to the scandal, two of Quinn’s top finance aides were either forced out or resigned earlier this year.

By FRANKIE EDOZIEN

March 20, 2008 — The number of city cops will plunge to levels not seen since the early 1990s, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly testified yesterday.

Kelly told City Council members that he will follow Mayor Bloomberg’s order that agency heads cut their budgets by not hiring 1,000 officers that had been planned for.

The NYPD has had trouble in recent years hiring, and officials point to the current $25,100 starting salary as the chief reason.

“Right now, we have to do something to reduce our budget, and the 1,000-officer reduction seemed practical because we can’t hire,” Kelly said.

“We had no recruitment problems until June of ‘05 when the arbitrator lowered the starting salary . . . It’s been very difficult to recruit these past 21/2 years with a $25,100 salary in this most expensive city in North America.”

An arbitrator is expected to come up with new salary scales in the coming months.

Officials at the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association disputed Kelly’s assertions that starting salary was the problem and said overall cop salaries are the issue across the board.

They said focus groups show that salaries in general are a problem.

“The NYPD has turned its inability to maintain staffing levels into budgetary savings at a time when local community precinct houses are screaming for more police officers,” said Pat Lynch, the PBA president.

He said Kelly’s plan to reduce cops by 1,000 will “strain to the breaking point the work force that is already burdened by fighting crime and terrorism.”

But Kelly told lawmakers that the reduction would not affect current operations.

Crime is down to record levels, with murders down to 496 in 2007 - 17 percent fewer than the year before.

By July, cops would number 36,838. Right now, there are about 35,800. In 1992, there were 35,802 cops.

But lawmakers, who were full of praise for Kelly for the city’s continually dropping crime levels, were skeptical that fewer boots on the ground could sustain the low crime levels.

“Your force is so over-extended that we will not be able to continue to make the gains that we have seen in the past. I believe that we are about at that point now,” Public Safety Committee chair Peter Vallone Jr. said.

Councilmember Hiram Monserrate (D-Queens) pointed out that the city had more cops in 2001 than now.

“During the worst crisis that this city ever faced we had 38,630 police officers and now we have approximately 35,548, somewhere around that. I don’t think that makes much sense.”

Monserrate, a retired cop, added, “I know if there was a Mayor Kelly right now, we would not be facing this issue.”

Kelly said after the hearing that cops would continue working to keep streets safe no mater what the numbers are.

“The Safe Street/Safe City head-count was 38,310, I believe, and the head-count that we are shooting for now is 36,838, so the numbers speak for themselves but a number of efficiencies have been brought to bear since that time.”

 The New York Post

By FRANKIE EDOZIEN

CRAZY CABBY: A driver may lose his license after screaming at a passenger who tried to pay by credit card.

March 18, 2008 — A cabby who unleashed a frightening foul-mouthed tirade on a female passenger who tried to pay him with a credit card - and then drove off with her cellphone and wallet - now faces the loss of his license.

When passenger Nicole Omara, 25, reached her destination at East 75th Street and Third Avenue last September, she swiped her credit card in the yellow cab’s machine. That triggered a screaming rant from driver Ilias Jerhada, she testified at a recent hearing before an administrative law judge.

“Bitch, give me my f- - - ing money,” Omara quoted him as yelling.

She said the driver snatched her open purse, took out her wallet and cellphone and tossed the bag on the sidewalk before driving off.

Using a friend’s phone, she called police. Then she called her own phone, which Jerhada answered, still boldly demanding his money, she said.

He returned to the spot where he dropped Omara, triggering a new round of screaming just as cops pulled up.

Police had to separate the two, authorities said, but wound up arresting Jerhada when they found Omara’s property on him.

Administrative Law Judge Faye Lewis substantiated the allegations from the 4 a.m. dustup, noting Jerhada’s license had been suspended several times.

He failed to show up for the hearing, so he did not defend himself.

Lewis recommended that the Taxi & Limousine Commission fine him $500 and revoke his license. The ruling was made public last week.

Jerhada has several more days in which he can make a defense in the case.

TLC Commissioner Mathew Daus, who will issue a final decision, said yesterday it was a “particularly egregious case and we are thankful that Ms. Omara was not injured.”

Omara declined to be interviewed, pointing to criminal charges still pending against the cabby.

The case comes as the TLC is cracking down on drivers who tell riders they can’t pay by plastic.

March 4, 2008 — Commissioner of Aging Edwin Mendez-Santiago told skeptical lawmakers yesterday the frozen meals the city is considering for seniors aren’t the average TV dinner.
“It’s not the same as when we take our own leftovers and stick it in the freezer,” the commissioner said.
“Within seconds of when the food is cooked, it’s immediately flash frozen so that when it is reheated, it’s as if it were as fresh as coming off the stove,” Santiago-Mendez testified in the City Council yesterday.
“When you go to your local supermarket to get something that might look green and fresh, that might have been flash frozen to retain its nutritional value while it was transported,” he added, saying the flash technology is used by reputable nonprofits such as God’s Love We Deliver.
After years of testing the program in The Bronx, the Bloomberg administration wants to give seniors the choice of either getting one hot meal daily or flash-frozen meals delivered twice a week.
A typical menu for the 17,000 lunches now served to seniors every day consists of appetizers, a main dish, fruits, vegetables and dessert.
Right now, officials said the myriad of contracts for senior meals cost between $2.60 to $26.04 per meal, but fewer contracts with the flash-frozen option would average $6.88 a meal.
That change would lead to fewer contracts and the ability to handle more specific requests, such as catering to diabetics, and being more culturally sensitive and offering more choices to seniors.
Currently, seniors only have two choices; kosher or regular.
Helen Foster (D-Bronx) wondered about the sodium content of the meals because she heard the food was a tad salty and asked, “Have you tasted the food yourself? I want to make sure we’re not offering something we haven’t tasted ourselves.”
Mendez-Santiago said his office and service providers had conducted numerous taste tests. “We even had Mayor Bloomberg do a taste test with some of the members of the bullpen [his office staff], and generally, across the board, people were very satisfied with the meals.”
He stressed that no senior would be forced to get the frozen meal - it would be a choice for those who would prefer not to wait for daily deliveries that might conflict with doctor’s appointments or other commitments.
Many lawmakers are concerned that the administration’s wholesale revamp of senior centers and senior meals might be moving too quickly. Lawmakers are also reluctant to sign off on a plan that takes away the daily human contact some homebound seniors have with those who deliver the food.
“Was there an outpouring of seniors who wrote the Department for the Aging, who wrote the mayor and said, ‘Listen the current system isn’t really working for me’ ” asked Melinda Katz (D-Queens).
Maria del Carmen Arroyo (D-Bronx), the chair of the committee. “You guys have a year and change left in this administration. You are locking in contracts for six months. What’s the rush?
“This is a lot to bite off. I’m not confident that [the Department for the Aging] is going to be able to chew this and digest it in a year and 10 months. Whoever comes in after is going to deal with the fallout. It takes six months to a year to understand if you were successful,” she added.
City officials are taking comments on their revamp proposal from now until March 14 at conceptpaper@aging.nyc.go

By FRANKIE EDOZIEN

March 3, 2008 — At least one American politician is sorry to see Fidel Castro go.
City Councilman Charles Barron said yesterday Cubans get some of the best health care in the world and he wants to study their system.
Barron leaves today for a nine-day tour of the communist island nation, where last week Castro - after 49 years at the helm - announced he would step down.
The Democratic Brooklyn councilman is going with a group of students from the City University’s Center for Worker Education, and will also tour educational facilities.
Barron told The Post he has a special fondness for Castro because of the Cuban leader’s efforts to help several African nations, particularly Angola, in their march toward independence decades ago.
“I think we should lift the embargo and normalize relations with Cuba,” said Barron, a former Black Panther Party member. He said the economic embargo was hurting Cuban citizens.
Barron’s support for Castro isn’t the first time the outspoken lawmaker has embraced an international political outcast.
Five years ago, Barron hosted a City Hall reception for Robert Mugabe, the dictatorial president of Zimbabwe, an event most council members boycotted.
Critics said Barron had ignored international outrage over Mugabe’s brutal and economically repressive regime.
It is doubtful Barron will ever get to roll out City Hall’s red carpet for the 81-year-old Castro.
The revolutionary leader hasn’t been seen publicly in almost two years since he ceded provisional authority to his younger brother, Raul.
The elder Castro made that transfer of power permanent last week when he said he was too ill to continue running the country on his own.
Barron said he is not scheduled to meet with either Castro, but said he’d welcome the opportunity should it present itself while he is there.
He added that he was eager to study the Cuban health-care system, which - echoing documentary maker Michael Moore’s film “Sicko” - he says is one of the best in the world.
The fiery councilman said he was paying for his trip with his own funds, not taxpayer allocations to his office, and that all travel was aboveboard. He is expected back March 12.
Officials at the State Department yesterday declined to comment on Barron’s plans, but in general journalists, members of non-governmental organizations and others can visit Cuba without special permission. Students, members of religious groups and relatives of Cubans require special travel documents