gotchanewsdaily.com 
CNN
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The Trump administration’s dismantling of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and its sweeping freeze on foreign assistance has made it more difficult to track potential misuse of US taxpayer-funded humanitarian assistance, meaning it could end up unintentionally going to terrorist groups, according to a new report from the agency’s independent watchdog.
The USAID inspector general’s office’s conclusion appears to undermine President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s arguments that their moves to abolish the agency will curtail fraud and waste.
Although the IG report notes that the office has long “identified significant challenges and offered recommendations to improve Agency programming to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse,” it makes clear that the slashing of USAID personnel as well as the foreign assistance freeze have negatively impacted efforts at oversight.
“Recent widespread staffing reductions across the Agency … coupled with uncertainty about the scope of foreign assistance waivers and permissible communications with implementers, has degraded USAID’s ability to distribute and safeguard taxpayer-funded humanitarian assistance,” the report said.
USAID requires that programs in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Syria, the West Bank and Gaza, and Yemen receive “partner vetting,” in order to ensure that taxpayer funds do not end up supporting groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, or the Houthis. According to the report, these vetting efforts have ground to a halt because of the reduction in staff at USAID.
“While USAID OIG has previously identified gaps in the scope of partner vetting, 10 USAID staff have reported that the counter-terrorism vetting unit supporting humanitarian assistance programming has in recent days been told not to report to work (because staff have been furloughed or placed on administrative leave) and thus cannot conduct any partner vetting,” the report said.
“This gap leaves USAID susceptible to inadvertently funding entities or salaries of individuals associated with U.S.-designated terrorist organizations,” it said.
Trump fired inspectors general from more than a dozen federal agencies in his first week in office but the USAID watchdog remained in place.
The freeze on foreign assistance also suspended all contracts and activities for third-party monitoring – which is used for oversight of humanitarian assistance programs in dangerous places – “including in high-risk environments such as Ukraine, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Haiti, Gaza, Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia, Syria, and Venezuela, impacting another layer of oversight over U.S. taxpayer-provided aid,” the report said.
The vast majority of the more than 1,000-person workforce in USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) has already been impacted by furloughs or stand to be put on leave, the report said.
“Collectively, executed and planned personnel actions would remove, temporarily or permanently, approximately 90 percent of BHA’s worldwide workforce,” it said.
This staffing reduction has also had a negative impact on the agency’s ability to respond to reports of potential misuse of humanitarian funding.
“Uncertainties about the scope of the waivers, the degree of permissible communication between USAID staff and aid organizations, the sudden dismissal of contract staff, and the placement of staff on paid administrative leave has limited BHA’s ability to receive and respond to allegations of fraud, waste, abuse, or diversion of humanitarian aid,” it said.
