The U.S. government is set to destroy nearly 500 metric tons of funded emergency food assistance meant for millions of hunger-stricken people in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
According to an official of the defunct United States Agency for International Development, this is because the high-energy, nutrient-dense biscuits have expired because they been sitting for months in a warehouse in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the destruction of the critically needed food would not have happened prior to the Trump administration’s dismantling of the USAID.
“This is the definition of waste,” the former official said, according to a CNN story. The issue was first reported by The Atlantic magazine.
USAID dismantled
Early in July, USAID effectively ceased to exist following the Trump administration’s slashing of almost 90 percent of its foreign aid programs.
The agency’s offices are now shut after six decades of global humanitarian operations, while its few remaining staff, functions and programmes will now be absorbed into the US State Department.
Trump moved to dismantle the agency within weeks of assuming office for his second tenure as president, accusing the agency of fraud, waste and promoting a leftist and liberal agenda, without providing evidence.
HIV/AIDS exempted from funding cuts
Meanwhile, Republicans in the United States Senate have said they will spare the US-backed HIV/Aids programme Pepfar from cuts, amid a larger effort to reduce government spending.
Senators said they would end a plan to cut $400m from the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief programme, leaving total proposed cuts at $9bn, according to the BBC.
The proposition was made in a Senate amendment to a rescissions package – meaning a bill that allows lawmakers to cancel previous funding approved by Congress. The planned cancellations also include funds for international aid and public broadcasting.
If the Pepfar amendment is approved, the bill will go back to the House of Representatives for another vote ahead of a Friday deadline.
