State Dept. gives billions in grants without oversight

The U.S. State Department has been handing over billions of dollars in grants for foreign projects -- ranging from cultural exchanges to “climate change” activities -- without adequate oversight or adequate assessment of the risks involved, and sometimes without knowing whether the money was actually spent, according to the department’s Inspector General.

Moreover, these money-management problems have been going on for years, despite specific warnings, according to the watchdog IG’s office. It says it has designated State’s oversight of grants, contracts and “interagency agreements” (where State spends money on another department’s behalf) as one of the department’s “major management challenges” every year since 2008.

In a special “management alert” issued last month, the IG’s office reports that 61 out of 156 of all the watchdog’s inspections since 2010 of the State Department’s widely varying branches have found “specific grant-management deficiencies,” such as lack of oversight, absent or incomplete documentation, or a lack of proper final closeout for the projects. More