Obama spending another $300 million in …

January 1, 2017

Barack Obama addresses the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, July 27, 2016.

The Obama administration is seeking to infuse another $306 million into HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention programs solely for the African nation of Kenya, where men who have sex with men, female sex workers and people who inject drugs “are considered key populations for intervention.”

The U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, citing government of Kenya statistics, says an estimated 1.5 million Kenyans are HIV-positive, the majority of whom transmitted the disease “heterosexually.”

The administration plans to award contracts to separately deliver services in distinct clusters of Kenyan counties, according to the USAID procurement document, which WND located via routine database research.

The agency, which released Solicitation No. SOL-615-17-000002 on Dec. 27, has served at the forefront of expanding Kenyan health-care services. Indeed, as WND has reported, one of Obama’s long-term goals has been “to establish a social health insurance system to enable equitable provision of health care to all Kenyan citizens.”

The administration likewise has simultaneously assisted, through USAID, in the decentralization of Kenya’s notoriously corrupt national government – despite the agency’s admitted risk of creating 47 equally corrupt county governments.

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The primary aim of the HIV Service Delivery Support Activity, as the new endeavor is known, is to improve HIV detection and treatment, while strengthening “institutional accountability” for community, facility and county HIV responses.

“Contractors are expected to collaborate with and support county leadership and other implementing agencies and partners across the system regardless of agency or funding source to ensure HIV services are integrated and complementary,” USAID said in the solicitation.

The contractors also are expected to serve on behalf of the Obama administration as a “lead agency” at the Kenyan county level, contributing to the capacity of each county to “operationalize and oversee clinical HIV services.”

Though Congress did not specifically recommend providing such services to Kenya or to any particular nation, the House and Senate Appropriations committees overall have offered their full support for Obama’s USAID Global Health Programs agenda and related HIV/AIDS treatment.

“The committee recognizes the significant achievements of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) through the support of anti-retroviral treatment, testing, counseling, and other prevention measures,” according to House Report 114-693, which accompanied the FY2017 State Department, Foreign Operations and Related Appropriations bill, H.R. 5912.

The committee in July had reported the measure, which recommended $6 billion toward global HIV/AIDS initiatives. The panel additionally offered “continued support for a United States contribution to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS.”

It recommended $8.9 billion for overall Global Health Programs – $340 million more than the president’s request.

The Senate report No. 114-290 on a companion spending bill, S. 3117, includes similar language and an identical amount for global HIV/AIDS, but recommends about $8.7 billion for overall Global Health Programs.

The bills remain on the congressional calendar.

WND has documented during Obama’s residency in the White House the hundreds of millions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer funds he has spent in Kenya.

See all the reports about Obama’s spending in Kenya. While the total remains unknown because not all information has been released by the government, there are references to multiple hundreds of millions of dollars:

Other global ventures

The following foreign operations-related contracting actions offer a snapshot of recent global-affairs initiatives of the Obama administration. They are not intended to serve as a comprehensive examination of foreign-policy contracting actions.

Improving Arabic reading instruction for children is the goal of a new initiative that USAID is proposing in support of the Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education.

The tentative program, which would target early grade reading in the West Bank, could provide literacy instruction training to Palestinian teachers and administrators.

The endeavor likewise would “encourage community engagement and participation to support increased student reading outcomes and school accountability,” according to the pre-solicitation notice.

The agency anticipates the possible release of a Request for Proposals in February, depending upon internal approvals and the availability of funds.

Encouraging public support of administration policies on refugees and dispersed-persons assistance will be a core task of a “diaspora specialist” that USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance is seeking to hire.

Engaging university students in dialogue about U.S. policy – while recruiting those students as campus ambassadors to further spread the administration’s message – are some of the functions of this personal-services contractor position.

The selected individual will serve on a Public-Private Engagement Team, collaborating with other USAID strategic-communications personnel in sharing information and photographs via social media.

Among other duties, the specialist will establish relationships with – and encourage socially responsible and effective donations from – diaspora communities and organizations.

The Washington, D.C.-based position pays $64,650-$84,044.

The agency likewise is recruiting a senior diaspora adviser to supervise the aforementioned activities. That position pays $92,145-$119,794.

Separately, USAID is concealing the identity of an individual private contractor it has brought on board as a temporary manager within its Bureau of Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance, or DCHA.

The secret recipient of contract No. SOL-OTI-17-000015, who was hired on a sole-source, noncompetitive basis, will receive a minimum of $97,000 as acting program manager for six months of work in DCHA’s Office of Transition Initiatives.

Based in Washington, D.C., the unidentified contractor will manage USAID programs in Ukraine and Macedonia while helping to train incoming program managers.

The agency in a Justification for Other Than Full and Open Competition, or JOFOC, document claimed it had a critical need to swiftly hire someone with specialized experience, citing federal law allowing this exemption from competitive procurement.

The JOFOC did not offer, however, an explanation for redacting the contractor’s name.

Steve Peacock

Steve Peacock is a freelance writer and photographer whose work has appeared in the Tampa Tribune, WND, Drug Enforcement Report, Corrections Journal and the Revered Review. He also is a teacher, storyteller, actor and poet. Read more of Steve Peacock's articles here.

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