The chapters for vital health programs around the world remain frozen and their work was unable to repeat, despite the mandate of the federal judge who temporarily stopped dismantling Trump’s administration by the government’s main aid service.
Interviews with people working in health initiatives in Africa and Asia have found that parents in Kenya whose children are believed to have tuberculosis cannot try them. There is no pure drinking water in camps in Nigeria or Bangladesh for people who left political conflicts. A therapeutic dietary program cannot deal with the malnourished children of South Sudan.
“We have people traveling 300 kilometers from the mountains to try to find their medicines in other hospitals because there are no one who does not stay where they live,” said Makele Hailu, who manages an organization that helps people living with HIV in the Tigray area of Ethiopia and was based on funding by the United States International Development Service. “USAID provides medicines and transports them to rural sites. Now these people are thrown away without proper information.”
A foreign ministry spokesman said on Tuesday that Foreign Minister Marco Rubio’s office had issued more than 180 resignations that allow the rescue of activities to continue and that they were more approved every day. The section did not respond to a request to provide a list of 180 projects.
However, even exemptions are still frozen, according to people in more than 40 USAID funded groups, because the payment system used to disburse the funds in organizations did not work for weeks. Without access to this money, programs cannot work.
On Thursday night, Judge Amir H. Ali of the US District Court of Justice for the Columbia District refused a proposal to keep Trump’s administration in contempt for the court to continue to freeze help, recognizing that the government had recognized that “immediate compliance by the order “is required.
But he wrote that the restraint “does not allow the defendants to simply continue the blanket suspension of Congress who have foreign assistance” in order to have time “to find a new, post-HOC rationalization for the massively suspension.”
Organizations usually receive their grants in small surcharges, submitting the requirements for activities that will be amazing. They are based on this rapid recovery to keep working. Many of the affected groups are non -profit organizations that have no other source of capital.
“Some NGOs have received exemptions, but no money exemptions are just pieces of paper – and you can’t just run paper programs,” said Tom Hart, the CEO of interaction, which represents 165 organizations that provide foreign aid. “These organizations have not been paid for work dating back to December and have zero assurance that they will be paid for this project or any proceedings.”
Speaking at a meeting with help organizations last week, Peter Marocco, the appointed Trump, who is now director of the Foreign Ministry’s Foreign Aid Office, said the payment system was offline, but will be restored on February 18. was.
Mr Marocco signed a statement submitted to the Judge in the federal court, citing the government’s compliance with the restraint mandate. In this, he claimed that the administration was acting to other regulations, not the executive mandate, to continue to freeze funding.
Trump’s administration insists that the resignation system allows urgent work to continue. But the process of issuing the exceptions was complicated, the Foreign Ministry spokesman said, because the department had to verify that the organizations demanding them do not mislead their activities.
“The department found that many activities previously described as humanitarian aid to rescue, in fact included Dei or sex ideology programs, transsexual surgeries or other non-lifesaving assistance and efforts explicitly derived from the first agenda Foreign policy exposed by the president, “the statement said.
USAID did not finance gender transition surgery. Gender -focusing programs included efforts to protect women from domestic violence and prevent HIV infection in vulnerable adolescent girls.
Organizations that received exemptions report that one or two activities in larger projects were approved for reboot, while surrounding and related activities are still frozen.
The chief executive of a large organization providing health care that he asked not to be identified because he was banned from speaking to the media from the USAID termination order, said his service had received two of the 24 exemptions for which they applied. If the body had all the resignations, it will cover about 5 % of its activities. He has not received funds so far. “I can’t buy medicines with resignation,” he said.
Elizabeth Glaser’s Pediatric Aids Foundation is the only organization that Times found in an extensive survey of USAID recipients who reiterated the work after resigning.
But the Foundation could not have access to new money. To restart HIV test programs and treatment programs, he has used money he had received as a repayment for disbursements before the stop-work order, said Trish Karlin, executive vice-president of the organization. He said the Foundation received exemptions for 13 of his 17 projects.
“For the awards where they are not funded by progress, but rather paid in delay as we invoice the US government, we have not been paid and nearly $ 5 million is due,” he said.
Karoun demirjian They contributed reports.
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