A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has determined that the Trump administration spent about $ 200 million to send more than 8,700 fans overseas to help other countries amid the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The GAO found that the initiative was heavily influenced by Trump’s White House National Security Council (NSC) and had little to no input from officials at the United States Development Agency. international (USAID), which is in charge of executing aid deliveries. to foreign entities.
“According to USAID, NSC staff have communicated to USAID the decisions of the United States government regarding ventilator donations, including recipient countries, quantities and manufacturers,” the report said, adding that “the Donating ventilators was not part of their initial strategy for COVID -19 response.
It’s unclear what guidelines Trump administration officials were following when deciding their distribution plans, especially given how hundreds of ventilators were shipped to countries that had fewer cases of COVID. 19 than others.
The GAO report notes that El Salvador received around 600 ventilators when it only had 74 cases of COVID-19, while Bolivia had more than 1,500 COVID-19 cases and received only 200 ventilators. In some cases, countries that had not reported coronavirus cases, such as Nauru, Kiribati and Papua New Guinea, have received numerous expensive breathing apparatuses.
A cage of ventilators is moved by forklifts on Tuesday, March 24, 2020 to the New York City Emergency Management Warehouse, where 400 ventilators have arrived and will be distributed.
Under Trump, USAID provided approximately 8,722 ventilators to 43 countries, including Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa, Ghana, Peru, and Paraguay; However, while allocation plans were riddled with holes, concerns also arose when officials quickly determined they couldn’t determine exactly where some of the fans ended up.
While USAID can confirm that all ventilators have been shipped to the destination country, the agency is not sure of the exact location of most respirators in each country, the watchdog found.
Currently, USAID officials are only aware of specific ventilator locations in 12 of 43 recipient countries and have only received “planned distribution lists” of 11 others. For the other 20 beneficiaries, the agency has yet to receive a plan to suggest how fans have dispersed.
While it’s unclear how long this could take, the GAO report notes that USAID has since taken steps to begin tracking fans by working with manufacturers and others to find their respective locations.
In addition, the researchers concluded that for 21 of the 43 countries that received donations, the costs of respirators “accounted for more than half of the total additional COVID-19 response funds that USAID committed in these countries,” indicating a significant financial commitment to respirators compared to other potentials. forms of assistance. “
In countries like El Salvador, Paraguay and Egypt, funds allocated by COVID-19 have been fully consumed thanks to donations from fans. In Bolivia, the report notes, “Bolivia’s 200 ventilator obligations accounted for about 87 percent of the total COVID-19 assistance obligations for that country.”
The GAO report was released as the House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy Oversight launched an investigation into the Trump administration’s fan buying. The panel is specifically investigating Trump’s deal to purchase roughly $ 70 million worth of ventilators amid the pandemic, even though ventilators have proven to be inappropriate for the majority of COVID-19 patients.
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Original notice: https://sputniknews.com/us/202101301081925300-trump-admin-spent-200-million-on-ventilator-donations-officials-unsure-where-most-went—watchdog/