Cuba democracy programs lack proper oversight, report says

Posted on Wed, Nov. 15, 2006

Cuba democracy programs lack proper oversight, report says
By Oscar Corral and Pablo Bachelet
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Agency for International Development's Cuba
democracy programs spent millions without proper oversight or
competitive bidding, leading to questionable purchases like a chain saw,
cashmere sweaters and Godiva chocolates, according to a congressional
report.

The scathing report cites "weaknesses in agency policies and procedures
and in program office oversight" as well as "internal control
deficiencies." Staffing shortages at USAID also meant long delays in
conducting program reviews.

The Miami Herald obtained an advance copy of the 60-page report. It is
to be issued Wednesday by the Government Accountability Office (GAO),
the investigative arm of Congress.

The report provides the most detailed account to date on $65 million
worth in USAID Cuba democracy assistance in 40 programs between 1996 and
2005, of which $62 million was allotted "in response to unsolicited
proposals," meaning there were no competitive bids. The State Department
used competitive mechanisms to award a separate $8 million to four other
programs, the GAO said.

The GAO conducted "limited testing" of 10 programs and found
"questionable expenditures" and "significant control weaknesses" in
three. None of the 36 recipients of USAID and State Department grants
was identified in the report.

One recipient, the GAO says, used USAID funds to purchase a gas
chainsaw, Nintendo Gameboys and Sony PlayStations, a mountain bike,
leather coats, cashmere sweaters, crab meat and Godiva chocolates.

Juan Carlos Acosta, executive director of Miami-based Accion Democratica
Cubana, told The Miami Herald in an interview Tuesday that except for
the chain saw, he bought the items and sent them to people in Cuba.

He said he bought the chain saw to cut a branch that had fallen near the
door of his office after a hurricane. He bought "five or six" cans of
crab meat and some boxes of chocolate to send to Cuba.

"These people are going hungry," he said. "They never get any chocolate
there."

Acosta said he also bought about a dozen leather jackets and cashmere
sweaters - on sale at Costco - to send to dissidents in Cuba.

"The auditors think it's not cold there," Acosta said. "At $30, it's a
bargain because cashmere is expensive. They were asking for sweaters,
from Cuba."

Acosta said USAID never told him what he could or couldn't send, and
added that he had reimbursed USAID for the chain saw.

Frank Hernandez Trujillo, executive director of Grupo De Apoyo a la
Democracia (Group for the Support of Democracy), which has received more
than $7 million from USAID, said he sent some Nintendo games to Cuba.
Acosta said his group did, too.

"I'll defend that until I die," Hernandez Trujillo said. "That's part of
our job, to show the people in Cuba what they could attain if they were
not under that system communism."

The USAID Office of the Inspector General is investigating the three
cases uncovered by GAO, the congressional agency noted in its report.

The study was commissioned by Reps. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., and Bill
Delahunt, D-Mass., both opponents of U.S. sanctions on Cuba. They
scheduled a news conference Wednesday on the report.

The Bush administration has made additional democracy assistance to Cuba
a centerpiece of its efforts to undermine the communist government of
Fidel Castro, and the report is likely to fuel the debate on its
effectiveness.

In a 2004 report, the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba
recommended providing $36 million to USAID and other government agencies
for Cuba. A follow-up report in July recommended an additional $80
million over two years and $20 million annually thereafter until "the
end of the Castro regime."

"This program's reputation has long been that it is politically
effective in Miami, low-impact in Cuba and loosely managed," said Philip
Peters, a critic of the Bush administration's Cuba policy with the
conservative Lexington Institute in Arlington, Va. "Congressional
oversight is long overdue."

USAID spokesman David Snider declined to comment, saying the agency had
not seen a final copy of the report.

GAO investigators interviewed dissidents in Havana who said they were
appreciative of U.S. support and that the aid "demonstrated the U.S.
government commitment to democracy in Cuba," according to the report.

The GAO noted that after 2004 both USAID and the State Department used
"formal competition to select grantees" and that the State Department
and USAID had taken recent steps to improve program oversight.

The GAO report also reveals new information on the nature of U.S.-Cuba
democracy programs.

Many of the materials sent to Cuba were delivered by U.S. diplomats in
Havana who often did not know what was being shipped in. On some
occasions, books were deemed "inappropriate" and were discarded, the
report adds, without providing details.

The Cuban government has long criticized the U.S. diplomatic mission in
Havana as bent on subverting the communist government. Under Cuban law,
its citizens can be imprisoned for up to 20 years for receiving U.S. aid.

According to data provided by USAID to the GAO, the U.S. government has
delivered 385,000 pounds of medicines, food and clothing and more than
23,000 shortwave radios since 1996, among other materials. The report
says some material was subject to "theft and confiscation" by Cuban
authorities.

U.S. officials said the GAO plans to issue a classified version of the
report with additional information on how U.S. aid is delivered to Cuba
and steps that can be taken to "reduce losses of assistance shipped to
the island."

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