Op-Ed: Bonnie Glick: American foreign assistance Inspector General needs to be able to do a vital job — investigations

When I served as the COO and Deputy Administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) during President Donald Trump’s first term, one of the most important partnerships I established was with the agency’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG). The OIG at USAID is rare among the federal government’s Inspector General community because it has broad law enforcement and investigatory authority both domestically and worldwide. 

While USAID has been formally disbanded, its OIG continues its work, providing invaluable oversight of most of our remaining foreign assistance programs now being handled in large part by the Department of State. In addition to its D.C. headquarters, it still maintains offices in several embassies around the world.

While the OIG’s footprint is small at USAID, its impact is mighty. It consistently and historically roots out waste, fraud, and abuse in the disbursement and distribution of US taxpayers’ dollars through foreign assistance, catching and investigating malfeasance and malefactors both foreign and domestic. 

Most of the programs and functions of American foreign assistance I witnessed advanced admirable, if cumbersome, work as a component of our National Security Strategy. Many of the best programs are still maintained. 

Nonetheless, I witnessed all three elements of the OIG’s hit list when I was at USAID: waste, fraud, and abuse. 

While I worked as COO, the Inspector General brought cases to my attention so that they could be addressed quickly. A few that come to mind include an NGO that fraudulently documented services that never happened, a waste in supplies that could not be delivered in a timely manner to relief destinations, and abuse perpetrated by international organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO) in terms of corruption during Ebola outbreaks in Africa by forcing sex or payments for treatments of sick relatives.

Thanks to our excellent working relationships with the OIG, USAID addressed each and every issue as it was raised. Foremost in our minds was an effective engagement that demonstrated respect for the taxpayer whose funds were entrusted to us and for the Congress who appropriated the funds. Accountability was always the key. 

The wanton disregard of the Inspector General during the Biden administration is shocking and did not go unnoticed by Congress. The levels of waste, corruption, and lawlessness in the distribution of taxpayer money to non-deserving programs and projects, including funds for the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA in violation of U.S. law and the Taylor Force Act were flagrant. 

Despite the recent excellent work done by the USAID IG, including six reports in just the first ten days of June, there is an effort underway to subsume these efforts into the IG’s office at the Department of State. This would be a mistake. Don’t misunderstand me, the IG in the State Department does important work, it just doesn’t do the same work. 

State’s IG focuses more on internal matters related to employment, harassment, theft of US government property, etc., in other words focusing primarily on waste, fraud, and abuse within the department. It does not have a mandate nor investigatory authority to investigate those who defraud the government from the UN or the NGO or contractor communities. 

Only the USAID IG has that authority, whether in Afghanistan or Ramallah or South Africa or Ukraine. Merging the USAID IG into an entity, and under the authority of the State IG’s office that has never done this work and does not have authorities to do so does not make sense if the Trump administration wants to continue to root out waste. 

Perhaps a component of the best course of action is a name change. Republicans are allergic to the acronym USAID, used for the US Agency for International Development. I might humbly suggest that a new IG’s office be housed under the Office of Foreign Assistance Fraud Oversight (FAFO). 

In so doing, the USAID IG would have authority over investigations of all foreign assistance, including aid from State, USDA, HHS, DFC, Millennium Challenge Corporation, and others. None of those agencies’ IGs has the authorities that the USAID IG possesses. If there is a name change, it can more accurately reflect its broad mandate. 

USAID’s IG has a unique gift for rooting out corruption, fraud, and the abuse of Americans’ generosity in foreign assistance. It should not be absorbed into the Department of State IG, it should operate in a parallel manner, with both Inspectors General reporting directly to the Secretary of State, while maintaining their unique authorities.

As we celebrate our 250th birthday, it’s important to remember that we are the most generous country in the history of the world. We should not allow our goodwill to be squandered because we did a lax job in overseeing the distribution of our citizens’ hard-earned tax dollars to those less fortunate around the world. 

Bonnie Glick was the Deputy Administrator and COO of USAID in the first Trump administration. She is now a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).