But the schools are not in the U.S., they’re in the Republic of Kenya.

The tentatively titled Kenya Early Grade Reading Project, or KEGRP, seeks to implement national curriculum standards, deploy more than 1,000 trainers to assist tens of thousands teachers and improve the ratio of textbooks to students. The Obama administration didn’t reveal the cost of the program.

According to a draft Statement of Work that WND located via routine database research, the U.S. Agency for International Development wants to ensure Kenyan children develop strong reading comprehension skills.

Accomplishing that task will be possible only when “access to quality materials matches the political and social will” to make it happen, the agency said in the document.

Kenya is one of the largest recipients of U.S. foreign aid, which peaked in fiscal 2009 at $830 million. The president’s fiscal 2014 request, however, dipped to $460 million.

The Obama administration nonetheless continues to view Kenya “as a strategic partner and anchor state in East Africa, and as critical to counterterrorism efforts in the region,” according to a Congressional Research Service report that the Federation of American Scientists made available earlier this year.

USAID’s Office of Education and Youth in Kenya acknowledged that it must proceed carefully when carrying out KEGRP, particularly in light of previous corruption scandals at the Kenyan Ministry of Education.

The U.S. in 2010 temporarily suspended education aid to Kenya when it was discovered that over $1 million in education aid had disappeared. Tens of millions in food aid separately was unaccounted for, leading the British government likewise to temporarily freeze assistance.

Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga suspended Education Minister Samuel Ongeri for three months over the allegations, while other ministers stepped down, the BBC reported at that time.

Kenya is East Africa’s most corrupt country, as ranked by the group Transparency International, the BBC noted in a related report.

USAID said in the draft SOW that “existing financial control issues remain unresolved.”

To safeguard against further siphoning of education funds, the agency will open the procurement to full and open competition. Once it selects a vendor, it will pay for the delivery of goods and services through what is known as a “cost-reimbursement/cost-plus-award-fee contract,” which sets limits on allowable contractor expenses while allowing for a profit.

Despite Kenya’s financial accountability challenges, the Obama administration intends to gradually transition KEGRP from a contractor-executed program to a government-to-government form of assistance. This will ensure “local ownership and sustainability” of the project.

USAID anticipates that within four years the government of Kenya “will have sufficient capacity in the areas of finance and procurement, human resources, and teaching and learning materials to mainstream and sustain” the endeavor.

Although gender parity – the number of boys versus girls enrolled in primary school – largely has been achieved across the country, the “gender gap” requires additional attention on Kenya’s coast and in its northeastern provinces, USAID said.

KEGRP will extend existing USAID/Kenya efforts “to improve the enrollment, retention, and performance of marginalized girls and boys” in these regions.

WND previously reported Obama administration spending and projects in Kenya have become so voluminous that USAID must hire more contractors to oversee endeavors other providers already carry out across the African nation.

Just last year, USAID, in its own words, admitted that the “overall USAID/Kenya program has increased rapidly and exponentially, outstripping workforce resources available to effectively perform assessments and rigorous analyses … track results … manage recordkeeping, and other project development and program office functions.”

According to a Statement of Work for the USAID/Kenya program-support initiative – which WND located through routine database research – the agency acknowledged the level of U.S.-financed Kenyan operations has outpaced Washington’s ability to adequately manage it.

“All levels of personnel ceilings are constrained by a limited U.S. government footprint in Kenya,” the SOW said. “In order to address these constraints, certain project development and program office functions … have been identified for delivery through external contracting.

“This group of functions will be contracted as one support activity to reduce the burden on mission staff.”

But before he heads back to Chicago, his administration plans to spend up to $400 million on “green” projects around the world, survey the satellite television viewing habits of Africans and simultaneously try to spark private-sector investment in the West Bank and Gaza, among other federal endeavors.

Improved access to “reliable and affordable clean energy” is the goal behind four U.S. Agency for International Development contracts targeting U.S.-designated “critical priority countries,” or CPCs, of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, South Sudan and Yemen.

The $400 million figure is the maximum that can be spent over five years via “indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity,” or IDIQ, contracts awarded to Dexis Consulting Group, ECODIT LLC, International Resources Group and Tetra Tech.

Listed online are the first, second, third and fourth documents.

The vendors on behalf of Obama will attempt to improve regulation and governance of those nations’ energy sectors, according to the original solicitation.

Ultimately, USAID hopes to achieve “low carbon development” in the CPCs. One way it may accomplish that task is by “facilitating innovative financing approaches” to clean energy projects, it said.

Separately, environmental industry consultants are getting free airfare and hotel rooms for a trip to Beijing and other Chinese cities courtesy U.S. taxpayers.

The selected contractor will conduct a “definitional mission,” or DM, to explore potential business opportunities. The U.S. Trade & Development Agency will finance the trip through a $60,000 grant.

According to a Statement of Work for the China Environmental Sector Opportunities DM, China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection “requested USTDA assistance with pollution reduction activities with recognition of U.S. expertise and technology leadership in this sector.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors is soliciting bids from potential contractors to assess satellite TV consumption in the African nations of Nigeria, Ethiopia and Zambia.

The insights gained from the survey will help BBG design future TV and audio broadcasts in the region. The BBG already offers Voice of America radio and is engaged in various partnerships with digital and online media organizations, according to its website.

Sparking private sector growth in the West Bank and Gaza is the objective of The Trade Project, a USAID initiative for which Deloitte Consulting LLP secured a $20 million three-year contract with two one-year options.

Deloitte will devise a plan to help increase trade and investment, ensuring that the region “is economically integrated into the global economy.”

The following projects and awards represent a sampling of other recent contracting actions, global and domestic, under Obama administration departments and agencies. The list is by no means comprehensive, nor does it necessarily contain the largest or most outlandish federal projects of the federal government.

AZERBAIJAN

Reducing the former Soviet republic’s reliance on the oil sector is the motivation behind USAID’s Azerbaijan Trade Linkages and Agribusiness Strengthening, or ATLAS, project.

ATLAS will rely on a contractor – who stands to secure a three-year contract worth about $18 million – to help the Caucasus-region nation’s agricultural sector while also devising strategies to diversify the overall economy. The agency acknowledged, however, that the procurement “is subject to internal USAID approvals and the availability of funds,” according to a solicitation.

USAID envisions the removal of bureaucratic barriers “that hinder the development of micro, small and medium enterprises [or SMEs] in the non-oil sector.”

GEORGIA

A $22 million, five-year contract will go to a USAID contractor to carry out the Restoring Efficiency to Agriculture Production, or REAP, program in the nation of Georgia. The agency’s goal is to boost rural-area employment and income, which it hopes to achieve by providing assistance to SMEs “to support improved agricultural productivity, marketing, and processing.”

GHANA

The integration of gender equality into large-scale energy development projects in Ghana will result in the awarding of contracts to private-sector consultants who will be tasked with providing technical support on such matters to the Millennium Challenge Corporation. MCC, a U.S. government corporation, will hire the contractors to work with its Social and Gender Assessment team. It did not disclose an estimated cost.

JORDAN

Increasing industry “growth, employment, and resiliency” in Jordan’s tourism sector are the goals of a $9.6 million contract that USAID awarded to Chemonics International. Chemonics will attempt to accomplish the goal “by enhancing the perception of Jordan as a tourism destination in a very competitive international marketplace.”

ROMANIA

Romania wants to modernize its oil and gas fields, so USTDA plans to pay a U.S. energy industry consultant $65,000 to craft a report on potential business opportunities in that nation. This “definitional mission” will help the agency decide whether to devote additional funds to carry out more detailed reports or to provide other technical assistance to Romania.

SOUTH AFRICA

The Energy Department of South Africa wants to launch a “smart metering” infrastructure project in Ekurhuleni, a metropolitan municipality of over 3 million residents – and USTDA is offering a $695,000 grant to a consultant to travel there and perform a “feasibility study” of the proposed plan.

TIMOR-LESTE

A multi-day scuba-diving expedition along the coast of the Southeast Asian nation of Timor-Leste will cost the National Marine Fisheries Service about $82,000. The NMFS, a unit of the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration at the U.S. Department of Commerce, for two weeks will rent a “live-aboard” charter boat for six divers who will assess the abundance, size and diversity of a coral reef.

It respectively awarded both a $61,000 and $21,000 contract to the Honolulu-based Compass Charters for the services.

UNITED STATES

The Smithsonian Institution will spend up to $2 million on new cases to display “textiles, wallpapers, drawings, prints and three dimensional objects” in the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York City.

The Federal Highway Administration needs a contractor to run its Summer Transportation Internship Program for Diverse Groups, which seeks “promote the entry of women, persons with disabilities, and members of other diverse groups that have been traditionally underrepresented in the transportation industry.” FHWA did not disclose the estimated cost.

While the Pentagon’s reliance on private vendors to support international military operations is nothing new, plans to station such providers specific to such a large swath of Africa does deviate from prior procurement actions.

The Trans-Sahara Short Take-Off and Landing Airlift Support initiative will rely on outside assistance in the event that soldiers of U.S. Special Operations Command-Africa sustain traumatic medical emergencies, thereby requiring urgent transportation out of hostile zones.

Indeed, SOCOM-Africa places such urgency on its anticipated use of such Casualty Evacuation, or CASEVAC, services that, at a minimum, contractors must be capable of launching an airborne response with only a three hour notice.

The selected vendor likewise must possess the ability to be placed on heightened response and “be airborne within one hour of notification,” according a revised Performance Work Statement released April 16 that WND located via routine database research.

Despite this urgency, the vendor securing that contract largely will engage in cargo- and personnel airlift activities, plus a limited number of air-drop missions.

The “most likely” locations for such operations are Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Tunisia, according to the U.S. Transportation Command solicitation.

Kenya, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, and Uganda also fall within the Primary Operating Area, or POA, of this endeavor, the USTRANSCOM document says.

SOCOM-Africa will enable this expedited response-capability by stationing the contractor in Burkina Faso, a landlocked West African nation, it says.

A search of prior Tactical Combat Casualty Care and CASEVAC solicitations available via the FedBizOpps system shows that USSOCOM and other Department of Defense units typically and primarily seek only training and equipment.

Rather than soliciting continent-wide provision of emergency medical and flight assistance, those contracting actions generally have sought assistance to enable combatant commands to provide themselves with such medical assistance.

One USSOCOM contracting action representative of the government’s acquisition of CASEVAC “kits” and trauma-management training, for example, described a critical need for Special Operations combat forces to obtain new techniques and technology in support of “ongoing operations worldwide.”

Another Special Ops solicitation from late last year revealed a $40 million, two-year contract extension awarded to Tribalco, LLC, a Bethesda, Maryland-based maker of CASEVAC and other “soldier-survival” equipment.

USTRANSCOM did not disclose an estimated cost of the Africa-centric CASEVAC procurement.

In other U.S. military procurement actions specific to Africa:

• The Defense Logistics Agency on April 12 issued a request for bids to provide the U.S. Air Force with 547,500 gallons of No. 2 diesel fuel “for ongoing deliveries to Niamey Airport, Niger, (Africa).”
• The U.S. Naval Facilities Engineering Command, or NAVFAC, announced it intends to spend up to $25 million for power plant upgrades at Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti (CLDJ), Africa; however, despite acknowledging in an earlier document the estimated cost of the Caterpillar generators, a partly redacted no-bid Justification & Approval document blacked out the final award amount. It offered no explanation for the redaction .
• NAVFAC additionally began soliciting bids to build a cold-storage food warehouse and a separate galley to store P-218 anti-malarial drug reserves, representing another potential $25 million contracting endeavor at CLDJ.
• NAVFAC on April 12 revealed that it awarded a $33 million contract to Kellogg, Brown and Root to “perform base operating services at CLDJ and occasionally other locations within Africa.”
• Despite announcing the KBR contract this month, the Navy unit actually awarded it in December, the document shows.

The budget also doesn’t align with a House plan that spends hundreds of billions of dollars less. Both, however, project spending more than the government receives far into the future.

But even so, frogs, Uganda and pine cone projects apparently are so important to the Obama administration that it’s worth borrowing money and paying interest to fund them.

Also, there’s high-priced construction of a new embassy in Mexico and the need to prevent crime – in El Salvador.

Despite the looming threats from overspending that has put the U.S. more than $16 trillion in debt, questionable spending priorities were found in database searches of federal documents.

Notable among recently launched initiatives is a State Department plan to design and build an embassy compound on 5.6 acres in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico – a venture that might cost close to $100 million.

“Continuing a legacy of outstanding diplomatic architecture, OBO [Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations] seeks to commission our nation’s top designers and constructors to create facilities of outstanding quality and value,” State said in a Request for Proposals, or RFP.

State likewise plans to spend up to $25 million on the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel, where the consulate façade and other structural components are in need of major renovations, according to an RFP.

The department similarly will spend about $21 million on security upgrades to three separate embassy compounds in Bangkok, Thailand, where it will tear down and replace portions of perimeter walls while reinforcing other wall segments. Upgrades to adjacent roads and landscaping are included in the project.

On the opposite end of the federal spending spectrum is a U.S. Forest Service project that will hire contractors to climb to the tops of pine trees in Colville National Forest to collect cones, which will be bagged and analyzed for their seeds. The project, which seeks to gather seeds to remediate chronic rotting and destruction of such trees, could cost taxpayers up to $70,000 over the next two years.

The following list represents an additional snapshot of recent federal procurement actions. The nation-by-nation compilation is by no means comprehensive; it only aims to enlighten U.S. taxpayers about how the federal government is spending, or intends to spend, their money.

El Salvador

A $25 million award went to Washington, D.C.-based contractor Creative Associates International, which will help the government of El Salvador, on behalf of USAID, to expand its nationwide crime-prevention program.

Israel

Upwards of $100 million could be paid out to contractors by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers to build underground facilities below existing Israeli military buildings in a project known as Site 81, Phase Two. Individual contracts – to be awarded in an unspecified volume over five years – would not exceed $4.9 million for each award. (Solicitation No. W912GB-13-R-0019).

The Army Corps several months ago in a separate project known as Site 911 Phase Two awarded a $63 million contract to Edison, N.J.-based Conti Federal Services Inc. (Solicitation No. W912GB-13-R-0001; Contract No. W912GB-13-C-0004) to build both underground and above-ground Israeli military facilities.

Uganda

An endeavor to create environmental graduate-degree programs and other training for the Ugandan oil industry has been reopened by USAID, which on March 22 resumed its search for contractors capable of carrying out the initiative. The agency initially will spend up to $7 million to start the USAID/Uganda Environmental Management for the Oil Sector program. WND broke the story on the project’s unveiling last November, when USAID first launched its search for contractors.

United States

A survey of frog, toad, turtle, salamander and snake populations of Ottawa National Forest in Michigan will cost $79,000 under a contract that the U.S. Forest Service awarded to Great Lakes Ecological Services. USFS said in a contract notice that the Wisconsin-based company will perform “the final field work of a multi-year concentrated effort to inventory and gather” data that may be “indicators of climate change and other environmental factors.”

Outdoor recreation cages are needed by the Bureau of Prisons for the U.S. penitentiary in Atwater, Calif. The BOP seeks to buy two steel cages, each 75 feet long and 18 feet high. The bureau issued a Request for Quotations from potential providers but did not provide an estimated cost.

Vietnam

The cost of environmental remediation of Da Nang Airport’s lingering dioxin problem continues to climb, evidenced by the $37 million contract that USAID awarded TerraTherm Inc. The agency on March 25 revealed that it awarded – nearly seven weeks earlier – a sole-source contract to TerraTherm because the Gardner, Mass.-based company holds sole, worldwide rights to unique technologies that the U.S. government prefers to use.

Due to the nature of the Da Nang cleanup, the total award under this Cost-Plus-Fixed-Fee, or CPFF, contract might either fall under or rise above the $37 million figure “because uncertainties involved in contract performance do not permit costs to be estimated with a high degree of certainty or accuracy,” according to the contract award notice. Two years ago, USAID initially estimated that the Da Nang endeavor would cost about $10 million.

West Bank/Gaza

USAID’s Enhanced Palestinian Justice Program will get under way following the agency’s anticipated April 8 release of a Request for Proposals. The initiative’s overall goal “is to build a more effective and competent Palestinian justice sector that is accountable to the public and responds to citizens’ needs.”

The agency did not disclose the estimated cost of the program, which is unrelated to a separate $20.5 million USAID contract to help the Palestinian Authority “build more effective and competent public institutions that are accountable to the public and respond to citizens’ needs.”

WND just a week ago reported funding was moving forward for other projects, including a survey of the gopher tortoise, alternative energy outings to Turkey and the purchase of gold pellets.

The magnitude of the federal government’s ammunition buildup has made headlines as members of the military, police departments and consumers find shelves bare.

But the full impact may yet to be seen, as WND has uncovered a plan by the FBI to spend up to $100 million over five years on millions of rounds for its machine guns and pistols.

According to a solicitation revised and released March 25 that WND discovered during routine database research, the FBI is gathering the ammunition “to be carried and fired [by FBI Special Agents] in defense of life” as well as for training purposes.

The ammunition includes a combination of field-ready Glock 9mm rounds as well as reduced-lead training ammo. Weapons listed in the Statement of Work, or SOW, are Glock Model 17, Glock Model 19, Glock Model 26, SIG Sauer P226, SIG Sauer P228, Heckler and Koch MP5 9mm submachine gun (K, A2, A3, SF and SD versions).

“The FBI is the federal government’s principal agency responsible for investigating violations of more than 260 federal statutes,” the SOW points out. “As the investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Justice, FBI Special Agents (SA), in the pursuit of duty, may be involved in high threat assignments where deadly force may be used in the face of violent confrontations.”

Contractors are peppering the bureau with questions as they jockey for position to secure the lucrative contract, the amended solicitation indicates. Once the FBI decides on a provider, that contractor will deliver the ammunition within 60 days to FBI facilities and “other approved federal government locations” in the continental U.S. as well as Hawaii, Alaska and Puerto Rico.

Hundreds of millions of rounds likewise are being ordered by the Department of Homeland Security, with more than a quarter-billion of them slated specifically for Customs and Border Protection training over five years.

Although DHS has not yet awarded contracts in that proposed CBP acquisition, late last year it revealed its intention to buy 250 million rounds of Smith & Wesson .40 ammunition over the life of a five-year contract.

DHS yesterday separately issued a revised solicitation to buy a combination of 100,000 handgun and rifle rounds destined for the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, or FLTC, in Artesia, N.M. It did not disclose the estimated cost.

The department today additionally released another amended procurement notice for 360,000 rounds of jacketed hollow-point .40 caliber training ammo also destined for the Artseia FLTC.

InfoWars.com reported on the initial release of that particular procurement earlier this week.

Although the estimated cost of the solicitation, likewise, has not been disclosed, DHS last month awarded a $49,000 contract to Grace Ammo LLC for a similar batch of ammo for the Artesia facility.

DHS in January purchased an additional 200,000 rounds of jacketed hollow-point .40 caliber rounds. It awarded a $46,000 contract to Evian Group Inc. in that instance.

Some of the apparently indispensable projects include a survey of the gopher tortoise, alternative energy outings to Turkey and the purchase of gold pellets.

The U.S. Agency for International Development said in a public notice that “due to the failure of Congress to reach a deal on balanced deficit reduction to avoid sequestration, the president on March 1, 2013, as required by law, issued a sequestration order canceling approximately $85 billion in budgetary resources across the federal government for the remainder of the federal fiscal year.”

USAID recently advised vendors that the agency “is taking every step to mitigate the effects of these cuts, but … it is likely that your company’s workforce, revenue, and planning processes may be affected.”

But that is not stopping USAID from reaching out to contractors to carry out its new $700 million global “ecological-governance” program.

The primary goal of the agency’s Restoring the Environment through Prosperity, Livelihoods and Conserving Ecosystems, or REPLACE, program is to strengthen the ability of governments and non-governmental organizations around the globe to provide climate-change mitigation and adaptation, seascape and landscape management, and other environmental and economic interventions.

Numerous other federal entities issued similar warnings via the FedBizOpps contractor database. Despite the advisories, new projects continue to emerge while existing programs undergo expansion, from the seemingly inconsequential – such as a $79,000 U.S. Trade & Development Agency grant to send U.S. railway representatives on an exploratory mission to India – to initiatives on a multi-billion-dollar scale.

Why do we elect liars are leaders? Find out in the best-selling “How Evil Works.”

Most notable is the Department of Defense’s extended outsourcing of global counter-narcotics functions through its Counter Narco-Terrorism Program Office, or CNTPO, a potential $15 billion contract vehicle that has enriched – and will continue to enrich – Blackwater Lodge & Training Center Inc.; Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems; ARINC Engineering Services LLC; Raytheon Technical Service Company; and Northrop Grumman/TASC Inc.

The following list of federal procurement actions represents an additional snapshot of recent contracts, requests for proposals and other solicitations, both large and small. This nation-by-nation compilation is by no means comprehensive but is designed to enlighten U.S. taxpayers about how the federal government is spending – or intends to spend – their money.

GAZA/WEST BANK

The creation of environmental-themed public murals, conducting student field-trips to “environmentally important sites” in Hebron and Jericho and holding environmental summer camps for Palestinian children are among programs that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service intends to fund. And USDA is procuring the services of the Palestinian Association for Child Arts and Culture to carry out these tasks for youth in the city of Hebron. The agency did not disclose the estimated cost.

Helping the Palestinian Authority to “build more effective and competent public institutions that are accountable to the public and respond to citizens’ needs” will cost $20.5 million under a contract that USAID awarded to Development Alternatives Inc.

WND broke the story on the project’s unveiling last April.

PAKISTAN

Current efforts to improve the competitiveness of small- and medium businesses in Pakistan have been extended another 20 months, now that USAID has raised Chemonics International’s contract ceiling to $93 million. The current contract for the Pakistan Firms Project was slated to end April 15, but with a $2.5 million increase, Chemonics will continue to provide technology upgrades, skill development and other assistance to hotels, mango growers, knitted-garment manufacturers and other Pakistani enterprises through December 31, 2014.

TURKEY

Alternative-energy industry representatives are getting free hotel rooms and airfare to Turkey to explore ways to capitalize on the nation’s energy boom. The U.S. Trade & Development Agency is offering a $537,000 grant to carry out the Smart Grid Upgrades to the Teias Electricity Transmission Network Feasibility Study. According to the agency, “Turkey is facing a rapidly rising demand in the midst of its bustling economic growth. The Turkish government is consequently making a concentrated effort to explore alternative sources of energy, such as wind, hydro and geothermal power as a way of meeting this shortfall.”

Consequently, the Obama administration has decided that U.S. taxpayers should shoulder the burden of that trip to Ankara.

UNITED STATES

Under its Adult Education and Immigrant Integration project, the U.S. Department of Education awarded a $1.3 million contract to World Education Inc. of Boston to design an initiative to “reduce linguistic, academic, and employment barriers for skilled and low-skilled immigrants and refugees, and to integrate them into the U.S. workforce and professions.”

Removal of asbestos from a “guard tower artifact” of the Louisiana State Penitentiary, Angola, is required for the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. The inclusion of the artifact is part of the Smithsonian’s Defending Freedom, Defining Freedom: Era of Segregation program, which “explores the post-Reconstruction era history of segregation in the U.S.” and how the phenomenon impacted African American communities.

“The [Angola prison] grounds assist in telling this story, especially as it relates to the plantation system of labor and the social interactions among the imprisoned and figures of authority.”

The estimated cost was not disclosed.

New floors and carpets at the U.S. Forest Service’s Northern California Training Center at Redding could cost anywhere from $25,000 and $100,000, according to the agency’s own estimates. According to a Request for Proposals, the work will include removal of existing floors, a clean-up of the sub-flooring, and installation of new carpeting and resilient flooring.

A “comprehensive survey” of gopher tortoise burrows across 8,580 acres of the De Soto National Forest in Mississippi also is being planned by the U.S. Forest Service. The agency recently began soliciting proposals from contractors to conduct the survey, which seeks to locate such burrows while assessing “habitat quality on selected priority soils.” It acknowledged, however, that a contract award is “subject to the availability of funds.” It did not disclose the estimated cost.

Gold pellets valued at $17,580 are being purchased by the National Institute of Standards and Technology of the U.S. Department of Commerce, though the purpose of the acquisition remains a mystery. Although WND discovered the NIST contract award to ACI Alloys of San Jose, Calif., (Contract Award No. 13-084) via routine database research, an exhaustive search of the FedBizOpps system did not produce a solicitation or other documentation explaining why the Gaithersburg, Md.-based NIST engaged in the precious-metals acquisition.

Obama, through the U.S. Agency for International Development, nonetheless intends to hire private contractors that would, hypothetically, offer services such as “reflective workshops” and “trauma education” to warring clans and tribes, according to an agency concept paper that WND located through routine database research.

The purpose of such providing services is to encourage empathy between “victims” and “perpetrators” – terms that the document repeatedly encloses in quotation marks to emphasize USAID’s position that so-called “perpetrators” also have endured trauma.

Exchanging “trauma stories” between hostile groups is a critical step in the community healing process, USAID says, as this sharing helps to raise awareness that “victims” are often the “perpetrators,” particularly when they carry out acts of revenge. This approach is one of several that USAID is proposing.

The “PEACE III” concept paper offers detailed ideas aimed at promoting stability across East African border regions. USAID recently released the paper to solicit feedback from contractors on various “theories of change” that could be implemented as part of future Horn of Africa peace and reconciliation programs.

The Obama administration hopes to create “healing peace-building cycles” that ultimately will replace “cycles of violence,” particularly along multiple conflict-prone points on the Kenya-Uganda, Kenya-South Sudan, Kenya-Ethiopia, Kenya-Somalia, and Ethiopia-South Sudan borders.

USAID said in the document that attaining such stability “is a central U.S. foreign policy and development priority in the context of regional security and economic integration.”

The agency acknowledges that the task ahead will be difficult, as “certain cultural practices and norms” in the Horn of Africa “may encourage acts of violence.”

“For example, in the western border areas, spiritual leaders bless the warriors before and after cattle raids,” the concept paper says. “A warrior is believed to have defended the pride of his clan and proven his manhood when he murders a man from the enemy tribe/clan.

“Songs and dances prepared for such warriors stir other warriors and young men to engage in murder and cattle raids. Women rebuke the warriors who have not been successful in raids rousing them to raid again,” the paper points out.

Despite the cultural, political, and economic challenges to successfully implementing conflict management programs, USAID says it had identified a “multitude of determined, credible, and committed actors at the regional, national, and local levels” that in the long term could help bring more “stability, peace, and prosperity to this part of the world.”

“The region is also witnessing a shift in national government commitment to peaceful management of conflicts,” the agency added.

Community peace-building efforts have led to some security improvements, especially in areas such as the Kenya-Somalia border, USAID says. Community leaders – including women, religious, business, youth, and elders – have helped mediate disputes before they escalate, thereby changing cultural practices that often lead to inter-communal violence.

Weaker governments, however, sometimes view these informal systems as rivals. Rather than supporting those systems, such governments attempt to undermine or simply ignore them, dismissing such organizations and activities as irrelevant.

“In several locations, most notably Kenya, the government has even sought to institutionalize this governance partnership nationally, via local peace and development committees,” the document says. The PEACE III initiative consequently will “focus on catalyzing the emergence and development of local peace-building networks in volatile border areas.”

Despite proposed cuts in U.S. foreign assistance to most nations – including Kenya – the Obama administration nonetheless has sought to hire contractors to sustain other contractors that already carry out voluminous projects in that nation.

As WND also has reported, USAID under Obama likewise launched a propaganda program aimed at swaying national and international opinion to support Kenya-related U.S. programs.

Following that WND report – which exposed federal plans to target specific journalists – the Obama administration sanitized its FedBizOpps contracting database of all traces of that and other Kenya-centric procurement documents.

In a separate, recent solicitation, USAID is recruiting a Program Officer-Kenya for its Office of Transition Initiatives, where the private contractor would serve for the remainder of OTI’s scheduled stay in Kenya. The position in mid-2013 will transition to USAID-Kenya’s Education & Youth Office.

OTI had established a Nairobi-based presence as part of Obama’s “support of the February 28, 2008, peace accord between competing political parties in the wake of inter-ethnic violence following flawed national elections in December 2007,” the personal services contractor solicitation says.

One of the key responsibilities of the Program Officer-Kenya will be to “represent program interests with USAID Mission personnel, U.S. Embassy staff, Department of State, and Department of Defense personnel.” In addition to needing a top secret-level security clearance, potential candidates who are dual citizens “may be asked to renounce second-country citizenship.”

The position, which pays in the $84,697-$110,104 range, also involves providing guidance to and oversight of contractors carrying out the Support Which Implements Fast Transition, or SWIFT III, initiative.

SWIFT III is a $1.5 billion worldwide USAID program whose goal is to “support U.S. foreign policy objectives by helping local partners advance peace and democracy in priority countries in crisis.”

USAID additionally has launched an information-gathering initiative to identify local and regional consultants and organizations to provide future short- and long-term “technical services and capacity building assistance.” This would include services specific to agency cross-border peace projects to the USAID/East Africa mission in Nairobi.

The agency’s search for potential help via this Request for Information is not limited to Kenya, however; indeed, the RFI likewise seeks to compile a comprehensive list of consultants to potentially work with other USAID regional offices and partners in Somalia, Djibouti, South Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic and Tanzania.

Pakistani nationals working at several U.S. embassies soon could get a boost in health care benefits as the U.S. State Department has begun shopping for top-tier services.

Their paychecks will not see so much as one Pakistani rupee deducted as they receive a broad variety of medical services, according to a solicitation WND located via routine database research.

The document also made clear that the selected vendor “shall insure that health care under this contract does not exclude HIV/AIDS care, or preexisting conditions.”

The State Department will subsidize an estimated 1,222 family plans and 190 single-employee plans. The family plans cover children of Pakistani employees to age 18, or age 23 if a full-time student and unmarried.

Coverage could apply to a variety to individuals and their families for local employees of the:

• U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, its consulates in Karachi, Lahore, and Peshawar, and its “presence” in Quetta.
• Department of State.
• Defense Attaché Office .
• Drug Enforcement Administration.
• Legal Attaché Office.
• Foreign Agricultural Service.
• Foreign Broadcast Information Service.
• Office of Defense Representative in Pakistan.
• Public Affairs Section.
• Refugee Office.
• Library of Congress.
• Foreign Commercial Service.
• Kabul Support Unit.
• Department of Homeland Security.
• Voice of America.
• Narcotics Affairs Section/International Narcotics and Law Enforcement – Pakistan.
• Office of Overseas Building Operation.
• US Agency for International Development.
• Department of Treasury.
• Department of Energy.
• Office of the Inspector General (OIG).

Although it is standard practice for State to offer health-care benefits to locally employed staff worldwide, the Pakistani package is noticeably more generous than coverage offered in other nations, such as Venezuela.

Citing prevailing practices in and around the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, State will foot the bill for just 90 percent of the monthly premium for those workers. Similarly, the U.S. Embassy in Caracas also prevents providers from excluding HIV/AIDS care and preexisting conditions, unless excluded by the human resources department.

On the other hand, Venezuelan staff can elect to include coverage for the employees’ parents up to 80 years old, though they must full cover the premium. Furthermore, while children of Pakistani staff only are potentially eligible for coverage until they are 23, unmarried college-bound Venezuelan dependents can stay on the plan until they turn 25.

Additionally, Venezuelan family-plan members each may receive funeral-coverage costs of 6,000 Bolivars, about U. S. $1,000.

Meanwhile, Obama administration officials said, according to the Washington Post, that the state-based “high risk pools” set up under Obamacare will be closed to new applicants over the next few days because funding is running low.

And the Washington Times reported Obamacare will push 7 million Americans out of their job-based insurance coverage due to limited funding. The report said the incentives for businesses to provide health care are being minimized, so more employers are expected to choose to pay a penalty to the government and not provide health care.

At the same time, there are reports the lowest cost health plan for a family soon will cost $20,000, and the Obamacare mandate fine for Americans is hitting $695 soon.

DHS Immigration & Customs Enforcement most recently embarked upon the outsourcing plan in Georgia, where it will continue to push the administration’s reform agenda to create a civil, rather than penal, processing system.

According to contracting documents that WND located through routine database research, the Georgia outsourcing endeavor requires providers to offer detainees, among other perks, “abundant natural light throughout the facility [and] ample indoor and outdoor recreation that allows for vigorous aerobic exercise with extended hours of availability.”

ICE recently issued a Request for Information from potential contractors in which the agency intends to assign detention responsibilities to private sector entities that will build new facilities, renovate existing structures or leverage a combination of the two.

The agency acknowledged that some detainees may have a criminal history or suffer from mental illness. In those cases, it would require the contractor to separate such persons into a medium- or maximum-security area.

Other detainees, however, would be accommodated with various services and conditions, such as:

1. Four hours per day of outdoor recreation and ideally a minimum of two hours recreation in a gymnasium during inclement weather.
2. Private showers and restrooms (where practicable).
3. Cafeteria-style meal service.
4. Non-institutional detainee clothing.
5. “Contact visitation,” including special arrangements for visiting families, with extended hours including nights and weekends.
6. Private areas for attorney-client visits, with video teleconferencing capabilities.
7. Noise control.
8. Enhanced, but controlled, freedom of movement.
9. Enhanced law library and legal resources.
10. “Enhanced programming,” including religious services and social programs and dedicated space for religious services.

ICE tentatively is looking for space in Georgia to hold about 2,000 male detainees – up to 600 who would be categorized a low-security, 900 as medium-security and 400 designated as a high-security population. Capacity for an additional 100 detainees would be divided between administrative detention and mental health units.

DHS in recent months launched additional searches for contractors offering detention, transportation, and food services in cities such Chicago, Miami and Houston.

The projects come at a time when the push for immigration reform – in varying forms – is heating up both on Capitol Hill and at the White House.

Indeed, in the House Committee on the Judiciary’s first hearing of the 113th Congress, Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., emphasized that the American people and members of Congress “have a lot of questions about how our legal immigration system should work.”

“They have a lot of questions about why our immigration laws have not always been sufficiently enforced.”

Goodlatte pointed out that while reform could greatly affect U.S. citizens, legal residents, and illegal aliens alike, he affirmed the principle that “America is a nation of immigrants. … But we are also a nation of laws.”

In response to that hearing, the immigrant-advocacy group Detention Watch Network reiterated its call to repeal mandatory detention laws.

Emily Tucker, DWN director of policy and advocacy, said in a statement: “While we are excited about the momentum to finally create a path to citizenship for millions of people, immigration reform must include the reform of our wasteful and inhumane detention and deportation system.

“Neither the White House’s nor Senate’s plans respond to years of community outrage about border and interior enforcement programs that have separated families, violated due process rights, and led to serious human rights abuses,” she said.

The DWN statement indicated that the committee reportedly is due to introduced a draft immigration-reform bill this week.

The Heritage Foundation says, “So far there is no actual bill – just a set of “principles” for the promised legislation.”

Jessica Zuckerman, research associate at Heritage, said in an issue brief, “These principles, however, do not adequately address the tough issues that have to be tackled to provide lasting and beneficial fixes that strengthen the U.S. economy, security, and civil society.”

Similarly, she added that the White House recently announced its own set of immigration reform principles, while promising to introduce an “even more comprehensive bill if Congress does not move fast enough.”

Zuckerman warned, however, that “if both initiatives do nothing more than reintroduce confusing, complicated, and contentious bills similar to the failed ‘comprehensive’ bill of 2007, then our nation will be poorly served by these latest efforts.”

Jay Anania, U.S. ambassador to Suriname, said last year during his Senate confirmation hearing, “It is very much in the United States’ interest that Suriname remains a stable democratic partner.”

Anania’s new living quarters will be part of a new 57,000-square-feet chancery building planned in the capital, Paramaribo. The ambassador has recognized Suriname “as one of the most ethnically and religiously diverse countries in the world.” He lauded the nation for holding in 2010 its “fifth consecutive free and fair national election.”

Anania failed to mention, however, that Suriname’s then-new leader, Desi Bouterse, is a former drug trafficker and alleged killer of 15 political opponents.

Amnesty International in recent months reported that the families of the slain “journalists, lawyers, professors, businessmen, soldiers and labor union leaders”still seek to bring Bouterse and others to justice 30 years later.

Bouterse had been tried for the alleged slaughter, but the trial was suspended, and the National Assembly passed an amnesty law that continues to thwart his prosecution.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration is focusing on how the U.S. can benefit from this “land of significant natural resources, from bauxite and gold to untapped petroleum reserves,” as Anania, formerly the management counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, described Suriname during his confirmation hearing.

According to the recently updated Suriname page of the CIA World Fact Book, its economy is dominated by the mining industry, with exports of alumina, gold, and oil accounting for about 85 percent of exports and 25 percent of government revenues.

Anania had told the Senate, “Free trade is a key part of the economic engine that drives progress and growth, and it is in our interest to increase our trade and economic ties with Suriname.”

According to a Request for Proposals that WND located through routine database research, the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Overseas Building Operations is prequalifying potential contractors for Phase One of the embassy project.

In addition to the spacious living quarters and new diplomatic business space, the compound will include maintenance shops, a vehicle maintenance facility, warehouse, recreational facilities, perimeter security, parking and roads.

The document noted that contractors selected for the first phase without subsequently being chosen for Phase Two each will be compensated an additional $25,000 by the U.S. government.

The compensation is justified, the document says, because the contractors otherwise will sustain burdensome costs related to unnecessary site visits to Suriname.

The U.S. provides little direct aid to Suriname, though it does provide counter-narcotics and military training to Surinamese troops and police through the Department of Defense and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Like many nations in recent years, direct U.S. assistance has decreased. Whereas the U.S. funded $650,000 in programs for Suriname in fiscal-year 2010, the Obama administration’s is now proposing $225,000 for fiscal-year 2013.