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Aid Worth Billions Lacks Oversight     02/11 06:04

   The U.S. Agency for International Development has lost almost all ability to 
track $8.2 billion in unspent humanitarian aid following the Trump 
administration's foreign funding freeze and idling of staffers, a government 
watchdog warned Monday.

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. Agency for International Development has lost 
almost all ability to track $8.2 billion in unspent humanitarian aid following 
the Trump administration's foreign funding freeze and idling of staffers, a 
government watchdog warned Monday.

   The administration's fast-moving dismantling of the agency has left 
oversight of the aid "largely nonoperational," USAID's inspector general's 
office said. That includes a greatly reduced ability to ensure that no 
assistance falls into the hands of violent extremist groups or goes astray in 
unstable regions or conflict zones, the watchdog said.

   The Trump administration's actions have "significantly impacted USAID's 
capacity to disburse and safeguard its humanitarian assistance programming," it 
said, also citing the risk of hundreds of millions of dollars in commodities 
rotting after staff was barred from delivering it.

   The inspector general, however, also noted that it has "longstanding 
concerns about existing USAID oversight mechanisms."

   Meanwhile, the administration and billionaire ally Elon Musk continued their 
unraveling of the aid agency. The General Services Administration, which 
manages government buildings, told The Associated Press that it had stripped 
USAID from the lease on its Washington headquarters.

   Staffers -- some dressed in USAID sweatshirts or T-shirts -- were blocked 
from going upstairs to their offices Monday. Guards, federal officers and 
officials stopped some from retrieving their belongings.

   "Go home," a man who identified himself as a USAID official told some 
staffers. "Why are you here?"

   The eviction from the building, which USAID had occupied for decades, 
follows a court late Friday temporarily blocking a Trump administration order 
that would have pulled all but a fraction of workers off the job worldwide.

   Two workers' groups that sued over the targeting of USAID asked the court on 
Monday to find the Trump administration in violation of the judge's order, 
after some workers were still locked out of USAID's systems.

   The government's steps suggest it "intends to continue taking potentially 
irreversible steps to dismantle the agency" before the court can issue a final 
ruling in the case, the employee associations said. Another hearing is 
scheduled for Wednesday.

   Trump and Musk, who runs what is billed as a cost-cutting Department of 
Government Efficiency, have taken aim at other government agencies. But USAID 
has been hit hardest, with Trump and Musk accusing the agency's work around the 
world of being out of line with Trump's agenda and wasteful.

   A Trump appointee at the heart of the sweeping changes at USAID defended the 
shutdown of the agency in a court filing Monday, saying Trump officials have 
been faced with "noncompliance" and "insubordination" from staff.

   Peter Marocco, USAID's recently appointed deputy administrator, submitted an 
affidavit Monday in the lawsuit brought by employees' groups.

   In it, he accuses USAID staff of stalling and resisting the administration's 
funding freeze and what he described as a program-by-program review. Marocco 
said that made it necessary to pull all but about 600 staff off the job.

   Trump signed an executive order Jan. 20 freezing foreign assistance, forcing 
U.S.-funded aid and development programs worldwide to shut down and lay off 
staff. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he had sought to mitigate the damage 
by issuing a waiver to exempt emergency food aid and "life-saving" programs.

   But USAID officials and aid groups say neither funding nor staffing have 
resumed to allow even the most essential programs to start work again.

   The Norwegian Refugee Council, one of the largest humanitarian groups, 
called the U.S. cutoff the most devastating of any in its 79-year history. It 
said Monday that it will have to suspend programs serving hundreds of thousands 
of people in 20 countries.

   "The impact of this will be felt severely by the most vulnerable, from 
deeply neglected Burkina Faso, where we are the only organization supplying 
clean water to the 300,000 trapped in the blockaded city of Djibo, to war-torn 
Sudan, where we support nearly 500 bakeries in Darfur providing daily 
subsidized bread to hundreds of thousands of hunger-stricken people," the group 
said in a statement.

   In an interview with Fox News host Bret Baier that aired Sunday before the 
Super Bowl, Trump suggested that he might allow a handful of aid and 
development programs to resume under Rubio's oversight.

   "Let him take care of the few good ones," Trump said.

   Aid organizations say the damage that has been done to programs would make 
it impossible to restart many operations without additional substantial 
investment.

   U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols on Friday temporarily blocked a Trump 
administration order that would have put thousands of USAID staffers on 
administrative leave that day and given those abroad just 30 days to get back 
to the United States at government expense.

   While the judge ordered the administration to restore agency email access 
for staffers, the order said nothing about reopening USAID headquarters. Some 
staffers and contractors reported having their agency email restored by Monday, 
while others said they did not.

   The inspector general advisory notice said the Trump administration's moves 
would cut 90% of the staff in USAID's Bureau of Humanitarian Affairs.

   The cutoff of funds means that the monitors charged with making sure no U.S. 
aid in the Middle East or Central Asia reaches the Islamic State group, 
Hezbollah, the Houthis or Hamas have been told not to come to work, the 
watchdog said.

   The watchdog office noted that it had pushed USAID last year to boost its 
training of agency staff to make sure that those monitors were properly 
screening for any such diversion of aid.

   In Washington, some staffers said they came to the USAID on Monday offices 
because they were confused by conflicting agency emails and notices over the 
weekend about whether they should go in. Others expected they would be turned 
away but went anyway.

   A USAID email sent Sunday night, saying it was "From the office of the 
administrator," told employees that what it called "the former USAID 
headquarters" and other USAID offices in the Washington area were closed until 
further notice.

 
 
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