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I am a doctor who was suddenly fired from USAID last month after Elon Musk gave “Wood Chipper to USAID.” I should live out what Mask is doing to his former employer. But I am not. I'm a whistleblower who worked for USAID for 8 years and Musk is (mostly) correct about USAID dysfunction.
The fate of USAID, which was reduced and wrapped in the State Department, emerged two predictable argumentative positions as Republican-led Congress passed the law to justify it. Musk and Republicans say “USAID is a “crime organisation” full of “radical left-handed madmen” who waste taxpayer dollars, but Democrats and USAID staff have played a big role in USAID's life-saving work They say it is. The truth, as always, is somewhere in between, but no one challenges the criticism of waste.
Musk “is not an apple with worms in it. It actually has a worm ball,” Musk said. Instead, it is recommended that USAID be better described as an apple that has been invaded by a worm. During my eight years at USAID, I worked with great colleagues and together we had a real impact, but we were undermined too often by hardening and sometimes malicious bureaucrats. There are many good apples in USAID, but there are also bad apples that ruin the barrel, as we'll go into detail below. In my opinion, the good to bad apple ratio is about 1:1, so the decision to fire 97% of the workforce is eager.
How USAID woke up and destroyed itself
USAID saves babies, but wastes taxpayer dollars at unacceptable tax rates. To borrow another common analogy, it would be fair to say that USAID is a baby suffering from a dirty bath that hasn't been cleaned for decades. Therefore, USAID overhauling masks is a potentially valuable act of creative destruction. But all stakeholders are abandoned in the bath, as musk exaggeration and minimizing the real impact of USAID suggests he may have gone too far. Instead, we must ensure that this moment is net positive.
Contrary to Musk's claim, USAID is undoubtedly producing valuable results as its defenders are now trumpets. For example, the HIV program has helped save more than 25 million lives since 2000, allowing 7.8 million babies to be HIV-free for mothers living with HIV and thus helping to stop the global HIV pandemic I did. A recent peer-reviewed study I co-authored shows that USAID investments helped reduce child and adult mortality faster than their otherwise comparable countries. Saving the baby's life helps America create lasting friendships and development creates a market for American products, but both are things to do. Humanitarian assistance in places such as Ukraine, Gaza, Indonesia, and Venezuela represents America's soft power.
A lesser known example of the value of USAID is well illustrated by the partnership between USAID and Private Foundation to restore Gorongoza National Park in Mozambique, which was destroyed by the Civil War in the 1980s. Idai. It is built on the Gorongosa model in response to the 2018 Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It also reduces the risk of emerging diseases while benefiting local people. All these programs are currently suspended and possibly mo-death, which is a serious concern.
USAID claims top doge Republicans in a letter to Rubio, saying it “exemplifies a pattern of obstruction.”
That said, everyone who works at USAID knows the horrible waste and the occasional malicious intent that occurs within aid industry complex. Musk and the White House highlight the example of Day, including the promotion of non-binary gender by Sri Lankan journalists, but there are countless others. The $1 billion global health supply chain contract offering HIV drugs has been ordered to pay $3.1 million to resolve corruption allegations, but somehow the next-generation contract is just as problematic as before There was. Many Beltway Bandit recipients charge an average absurd 30% overhead, but they often report meaningless results like the number of trained people.
My story of becoming a passive whistleblower (Merrit System Protection Board Case DC-12221-23-0102-W-1) symbolizes what masks must properly eliminate from the agency . When I became the deputy vice chief of staff at the Global Health Bureau in 2020, I quickly moved too slowly to advance $34.5 million to combat Covid-19, and the incompetence of career bureaucrats. I observed. Rather than thanking me for cleaning up their mess, after correcting other cases of their terrible mismanagement, the bureaucrats walked slowly, blocking promotions for me, and I tried to fire him.
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Encouraged by the successful retaliation against me in 2021, they once again slowly and slowly dig up hundreds of millions of dollars of COVID funds and were arrested flat in April when the delta waves exploded in India. For a few weeks they scrambled to inefficiently send supplies there only after the wave of cases peaked. Everyone involved with USAID was embarrassed and upset by their inefficiency. This was mainly due to the small number of same bureaucrats who retaliated against me. Distracted by South Asia, USAID has not only one-off delivery to Colombia, but also has to go after the fatal community waves of 2021 passed through it and then the fatal waves died there. , failed to send aid to Latin America. For example, USAID funds were late to Peru to fight Lambda's COVID-19 waves as a wave of roughly 30,000 confirmed deaths had been completely missed, and Washington was eventually returned, so they sent late to Peru to fight Lambda's COVID-19 waves It was done. I sent these data to auditors at the Government Accountability Office, but the 2023 audit generally called for negative leadership actions by USAID.
One of the main villains in my story was demoted by USAID administrator Samantha Power following a significant mismanagement of Covid-19 in 2021, but later gave Ume's job as USAID mission director in Cambodia It was done. Another villain left USAID for his leadership position in the CDC only after I sued USAID under the Whistleblower Protection Act. Throughout my three years of legal battle, USAID lawyers have adopted the sleazy tactics made possible by our ineffective whistleblower protection system, but in 2024, I finally got along with me. I've settled in. . When I was an active Army soldier, the waste I observed at the Department of Defense was not good or bad.
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Despite these horrifying realities, to paraphrase General Jim Mattis, if USAID did not exist, we must create it. USAID helped win the Cold War and helped make the world healthier, safer and more prosperous. But USAID can do much more than ever. It also represents how unexplainable bureaucrats can abuse their power, not fulfilling their duties, being delivered for the benefit of America and the world.
If Musk and Secretary of State Marco Rubio eliminate hundreds or thousands of bad employees at USAID, many suitable groups, including taxpayers, aid beneficiaries, and excellent employees within USAID, will be more likely to be more likely. That would be good. Economic history shows that creative destruction is usually net positive, but it is painful for those who cannot compete. But when USAID is experiencing this pervert, we should not abandon our baby in miserable bath water.
