Katrina Aid From Abroad Was Lost Certainly no one could have predicted that other nations would donate money to a disaster stricken country. It's never happened before!
Federal auditors laid out a scenario of omissions, missteps and
bureaucratic nightmares that caused the loss of money and other
donations sent from abroad to help victims of Hurricane Katrina.
The Government Accountability Office attributed the errors,
which involved as many as eight government agencies, to the United
States' lack of experience as a recipient of huge amounts of aid from
others.
"Given that the U.S. government had never before received
such substantial amounts of international disaster assistance, ad hoc
procedures were developed to manage the acceptance and distribution of
the cash and in-kind assistance," the GAO said in remarks prepared for
delivery to a House committee Thursday.
"It is understandable that not all procedures would be in place at the outset."
The agency said $126 million in cash came in from 36
countries after the Aug. 29 hurricane devastated New Orleans and much
of the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
Without a plan for dealing with such a large-scale influx,
legal restrictions kicked in that required almost half the cash to be
held in accounts that paid no interest, resulting in a loss of almost
$1 million and diminished buying power for eventual hurricane relief.
Because $400 million more has been pledged but not yet
received, the GAO is urging that instructions be put in place quickly
to handle the money.
Typical of the misadventures was the failure to enlist government
quality-control experts from the Agriculture Department and the Food
and Drug Administration.
This resulted in importation of medical items and military
food packages that should not have been allowed into the country;
because they were, the government had to pay for storing them. One
shipment of banned military meals-ready-to-eat was delivered directly
to a U.S. base, whose personnel distributed them to hurricane victims.
The report, which will be published later, is the latest of a
series of papers that have documented widespread mistakes and
incompetence at all levels of government after the storm broke or
overran some of the levees on which New Orleans depended for its
survival. Wide areas of the city remain unrepaired.
Yesterday the Army Corps of Engineers
finally admitted to Congress that their "Design Failure" caused the
17th St. Canal Levee to break. 588 people died as a result of that
break. Now they are evaluating all the levees for similar failures.
All
this came out because FEMA finally put the Corps on the spot to certify
the levees so FEMA could release flood maps that guide reconstruction.
NO maps has meant no rebuilding in NOLA.
Heckuva job awards now to the US Army Corps of Engineers.
To
send a message to Preznit "War First, People Last" about his pathetic
attempts to cover up his failure of a response, check out First Draft's "Send Bush Beads" campaign.
Federal auditors laid out a scenario of omissions, missteps and
bureaucratic nightmares that caused the loss of money and other
donations sent from abroad to help victims of Hurricane Katrina.
