All USAID workers in Washington, DC, have been put on mandatory leave due to an ongoing investigation into the misappropriation and misallocation of funds by the previous Biden administration, which included payments to the BBC and Politico to only report favourable news about the administration.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is, or at least was, an independent agency of the United States government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. With a budget of over $50 billion, USAID is said to be one of the largest official aid agencies in the world and accounts for more than half of all U.S. foreign assistance.
The agency is currently under investigation by the newly-formed DoGE (Dept. of Government Efficiency), set up and headed by tech magnate Elon Musk, which is in charge of reducing spending and reach of governmental departments, and to reduce wastage in the national budget.
Their discoveries about the allocation of taxpayers money have rocked the world in that much of USAID’s economic assistance has little to do with their primary mission and more to do with the ideological fancy of the Biden administration and about controlling the political narrative to favour the Democratic Party.
USAID accused of being overinflated and spending money on political bias
The agency has more than 60 country and regional missions. For USAID staff overseas, Washington has been preparing a plan in coordination with the State Department and would pay for the return travel of personnel to the United States within 30 days.
Revealed so far in the DoGE’s investigations have been how USAID paid some $8 million to Politico magazine and a steady flow of millions of dollars to the Associated Press news agency for the suspected reason of lessening any negative criticism of the Biden administration. Just as shockingly, the BBC is accused of having received £2.6 in hush money.
While most of the budget of USAID has been spent on worthy causes helping disaster-affected zones, famine relief, and charitable organisations around the world, in recent years some inexplicable and unjustified investments have been made in more cultural and ideological movements, such as the promotion of transgenderism in areas of Africa and sex-change operations in Guatemala. So far, no explanation has been offered as justification for this.
The shake-up at USAID has so far been enormous and suggests the end of the organisation and its replacement with a slimmed-down version with much more accountability, as well as indicating multiple corruption charges and lawsuits.
