US humanitarian aid to Cuba halted amid fraud

US humanitarian aid to Cuba halted amid fraud
Posted on Tue, Jul. 22, 2008
By rmmihfonsd
The Associated Press

MIAMI --
Future U.S. humanitarian aid to Cuba - worth about $45 million - has
been put on hold in the wake of fraud cases in two groups that received
federal grant money from the program.

Congress halted the implementation of the U.S. Agency for International
Development's 2008 funding for Cuba last month, The Miami Herald
reported Tuesday. The move was partly in response to a $500,000
embezzlement at one of the groups, the Washington-based Center for a
Free Cuba, federal officials said.

U.S. AID recently began a stricter financial review of its Cuba
democracy programs and suspended the second organization, Grupo de Apoyo
a la Democracia (Support Group for Democracy). The review found an
employee at the Miami-based exile group spent thousands of dollars in
grant money on personal items, according to a memo sent by U.S. AID
official Stephen Driesler on Friday to various members of Congress. The
money has since been reimbursed.

"When we have problems with two institutions within six months, out of
11 active grantees, you say, 'We hope this is not a pattern, but we
better pause and check and make sure,'" Driesler told the Miami paper.
As part of its internal review, U.S. AID is checking the legitimacy of
purchases and the accuracy of invoices.

Last year, Congress' investigative arm issued a report critical of some
of the aid organizations, and AID had planned to shift much of its
funding to overseas groups that support Cuban dissidents from the
traditional Miami-based aid organizations and academic institutions.

Center for a Free Cuba executive director Frank Calzon called the move
politically motivated and. The House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman
who pushed for the program's audit is Democratic Rep. Howard Berman of
California.

"If Mr. Berman were in agreement with the president's Cuba policy, he
would not be on this fishing expedition," Calzon told the Herald. Calzon
also noted that he - not a federal audit - discovered the $500,000 fraud
at his organization.

A spokeswoman for Berman said the congressman would be issuing a
statement on the issue later Tuesday.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/florida/AP/story/613783.html