US lawmaker questions $9.5B USAID health supply chain project

A U.S. congressional representative is demanding that USAID explain what it is doing to address shortcomings in its largest-ever project, a $9.5 billion effort to improve global health supply chains in lower-income countries. In a written question to USAID Assistant Administrator Atul Gawande, who leads the agency’s Bureau for Global Health, Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks pointed to a recent investigation by Devex and The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, or TBIJ, which uncovered significant challenges in the USAID project. “Their story showed evidence of fraud, waste, and abuse, and that USAID and the Washington DC consultant managing this project jointly manipulated performance indicators,” Miller-Meeks wrote in a question submitted for the record Wednesday, following a House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic hearing last month that focused on reforming the World Health Organization. Miller-Meeks is a Republican representing Iowa. “If part of the purpose of our foreign aid spending is to position the United States as a better partner as compared to China, how do we expect to do that when your bureau is funding projects like this?” Miller-Meeks wrote. She requested responses to two questions. The first: “What are you doing to crack down on corruption and overbilling like this by USAID's biggest government contractors?” And the second: “What are you doing to direct funding for projects like this away from expensive Washington DC consultants and to local actors and the private sector?” USAID has until Jan. 31 to provide the committee with written answers, which will then be added to the public record. The investigation by Devex and TBIJ uncovered previously unreported concerns inside USAID about the project’s design and implementation, changes to reporting requirements that make its performance difficult to assess, and doubts about its efforts to improve supply chains in the countries where it operates. The project, which began in 2016, is led by U.S.-based contractor Chemonics International. In a notice published last week, USAID announced that the HIV component of the current project will be extended an additional two years — until Nov. 2026 — while the agency continues a slower-than-expected rollout of a $17 billion project known as NextGen to replace the current effort.