Oversight operations for $8.2 billion in unspent aid are “now largely nonoperational given these recent directives and personnel actions,” the USAID Office of Inspector General said in the report.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The report examined operations at the Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance, or BHA, a USAID office responsible for providing humanitarian assistance such as nutrition to countries around the world. BHA, before recent terminations, had nearly 1,100 staff members, about half of whom were based in Washington.
When USAID notified its workforce on Feb. 4 about impending paid leave, BHA staff began losing access to USAID computer systems. Hundreds of BHA staffers were placed on leave, while hundreds of contractors were furloughed, temporarily reducing the BHA workforce by about 90 percent.
The waivers from the State Department for life-saving aid should let the $8.2 billion in undistributed assistance flow but the personnel moves have raised concerns about oversight, according to the inspector general.
BHA typically vets aid recipients to make sure U.S. funds don’t benefit terrorists and their supporters, but USAID staff told the watchdog that the vetting unit has recently been told not to report to work and cannot conduct partner vetting. “This gap leaves USAID susceptible to inadvertently funding entities or salaries of individuals associated with U.S.-designated terrorist organizations,” the report stated.
The pause on foreign assistance also suspended all third-party monitoring of humanitarian assistance, which is done by third parties in locations deemed too dangerous for USAID staff to travel, according to the watchdog.
The watchdog also made clear that there were already problems at USAID, including how the terror vetting only applies to prospective grantees and not contractors.
