Senator: Red Cross Misled Congress, Refused To ‘Level With the People’ on Haiti Money
“One of the reasons they don’t want to answer the questions is it’s very embarrassing,” says Sen. Charles Grassley, who just finished a yearlong investigation of the Red Cross.
by Justin Elliott, ProPublica, and Laura Sullivan, NPR, June 16, 2016
This story was co-published with NPR.
A blistering Senate report on the American Red Cross raises fundamental questions about the integrity of the country’s most storied charity and its stewardship of donors’ dollars.
The report, which was released today by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and contains nearly 300 pages of supporting documents, found:
After the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Red Cross spent tens of millions of dollars more than it has previously acknowledged on internal expenses. The Red Cross told Grassley that the money was largely spent on oversight to make sure the Haiti aid was used properly. But Grassley’s office found that the charity “is unable to provide any financial evidence that oversight activities in fact occurred."
Red Cross CEO Gail McGovern made false statements to Grassley’s office about whether the charity cooperated with congressional investigators.
McGovern and her subordinates have kept the charity’s own internal investigations and ethics unit “severely undermanned and underfunded.” The charity is “reluctant to support the very unit that is designed to police wrongdoing within the organization.”
There are “substantial and fundamental concerns about (the Red Cross) as an organization,” the report concludes.
In an interview about the report, Grassley said that even after a year of back-and-forth with the Red Cross, “we did not get satisfactory answers. It was like pulling teeth.”
Grassley launched his investigation following stories by ProPublica and NPR on Red Cross failures in providing disaster relief, including after the Haiti earthquake. The group raised nearly half a billion dollars after the disaster, more than any other nonprofit. But our reporting found that, for example, an ambitious plan to build housing resulted in just six permanent homes.
Red Cross officials, including McGovern, have repeatedly told the public that the charity retains 9 percent of donations to cover management and administrative costs. But Grassley found that a full 25 percent of donations — or around $125 million — were spent on fundraising and management, a contingency fund, and a vague, catchall category the Red Cross calls “program costs.”
On top of that 25 percent, the Red Cross sent the bulk of the donated money to other nonprofits to do the work on the ground. Those other nonprofits then took their own cuts for overhead costs — as much as 11 percent.
Over a year of written exchanges with Grassley’s staff, the Red Cross repeatedly revised its figures for the same projects.
“The most important thing (from the report) is an unwillingness to level with the people about exactly where the money went,” Grassley said in the interview. “There’s too many questions in regard to how the money was spent in Haiti that it gives me cause to wonder about money being donated for other national disasters.”
“One of the reasons they don’t want to answer the questions is it’s very embarrassing,” Grassley added.
In a statement, the Red Cross said that while it has not yet seen the senator’s report, the charity and McGovern have been transparent, and donors’ money was properly spent. The statement says the costs of the projects are “entirely justifiable given the size and complexity of the Haiti program, the scale of the destruction and the challenging and sometimes dangerous conditions of working in Haiti.”
The Red Cross was created by congressional charter more than a century ago, and receives a range of special benefits from the government.
In response to Grassley’s investigation, the Red Cross for the first time posted online a list of specific projects in Haiti. But the accounting on the list, along with other materials provided to Grassley, raises more questions than it answers.
Documents provided by the Red Cross to Grassley show that the charity at times spent large sums of money on management even when it appeared to be simply writing a check to other organizations that were doing actual projects.
In 2010, the Red Cross gave $4.3 million to its sister organization, the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) for disaster preparedness work. On top of the $4.3 million, according to budget figures the charity provided Grassley, the American Red Cross spent another $2 million on its own — to “manage” granting money to another organization.
The IFRC then took out its own overhead and administrative costs before using the money to help Haitians.
When asked why the Red Cross needed $2 million dollars to give money to its sister organization, the group said in its statement the costs were “incurred to ensure accountability, monitoring and evaluation of work performed and ensure our partners meet their contractual requirements.”
The Red Cross added that “Implementing a tracking system by project would take a lot of time and would be a waste of donor dollars that could be better spent on delivering services.”
In 2014, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., of the House Homeland Security Committee asked the Government Accountability Office to examine the Red Cross’ disaster services, in part because of problems in its response to Superstorm Sandy in 2012.
McGovern recently told Grassley’s investigators that the Red Cross “gave [the GAO] everything that they asked for.”
That statement was untrue, according to the report: “This is contrary to the documentary evidence of communications between GAO and [the Red Cross].”
The Red Cross, the committee found, “failed to provide to GAO a substantial volume of requested material.”
The report lists eight examples of things the Red Cross declined to provide to government investigators. They range from descriptions of the charity’s internal oversight processes to interviews with chapter officials involved in the response to Superstorm Sandy.
Grassley’s report found that while the Red Cross couldn’t kill the investigation, it “was able to limit the scope of the GAO’s inquiry."
The Red Cross undercut its own ethics unit
The Red Cross has about 20,000 employees. But its ethics office, which investigates waste, fraud, and abuse, is composed of just three people, according to the Grassley report. That’s down from roughly 65 staffers a decade ago.
One of the three remaining employees, the “compliance coordinator,” does intake of phone calls and does not do investigations. Another, the chief investigator, is based in New York, away from Red Cross headquarters in Washington.
Requests by the head of the unit, Teala Brewer, for more staff have gone unfulfilled by the general counsel, Meltzer, according to the report.
The report concludes that the Office of Investigations, Compliance, and Ethics was left so under-resourced that it is “unable to perform its primary function; namely, to perform investigations, ensure compliance, and maintain ethical standards.”
Update, Jun. 17, 2016: The Red Cross has released a full response to Grassley’s report.
US Official Recognizes Haiti’s Interim Leader for Now
The U.S. State Department's special coordinator for Haiti said Thursday (June 16) that he recognizes Jocelerme Privert as the troubled country's interim president for now even though the divided Parliament is avoiding a vote on potentially extending his expired mandate.
In a phone call with reporters, Kenneth Merten was asked by The Associated Press if the U.S. still recognized Privert as Haiti's provisional leader even though his 120-day mandate ended midnight Tuesday under the terms of a negotiated accord that brought him to power.
Merten responded: "I would have to say I would recognize him as the interim president of Haiti" at this time. But he stressed that Haitian electoral authorities should "act soon to clarify" who the country's provisional leader is moving forward.
The U.S. official's comments are significant because a Haitian opposition coalition insists that Privert is unlawfully holding onto power and is exhorting the international community, Haiti's police force and civil society to view him as entirely illegitimate. The United States is Haiti's largest donor and trading partner and has long had influence here.
At a Thursday press conference at an upscale hotel in Port-au-Prince, opposition leader Evans Paul called on people across the Caribbean country of just over 10 million to join together to demand Privert's departure. Paul is a veteran politician and former prime minister in ex-President Michel Martelly's administration.
But this week's planned street protests by Martelly's Tet Kale political faction failed to materialize in Haiti's capital. While some anti-Privert demonstrations have taken place outside the capital in recent days, the country is largely calm amid this latest phase of politician-stoked discord.
Also failing to materialize for a third straight day was a National Assembly vote on Privert's fate. Lawmakers are tasked with deciding whether to extend Privert's mandate until new presidential elections can be held or pave the way for new interim leader.
Cholzer Chancy, the acting leader of the National Assembly, has demanded that senators and deputies return to Parliament to vote. But many legislators aren't paying any attention to him and are instead continuing with their backroom negotiations and delays.
Meanwhile, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is deeply concerned over Haiti's continuing political uncertainty and called on legislators to urgently decide on a provisional government "that can ensure the completion of the electoral process and a return to full constitutional order without further delays."
In a Wednesday national address, Privert insisted his fragile government had things under control and said he would stay in office until the divided Parliament voted. In February, a majority of members elected him as a short-term interim leader amid suspended elections and another institutional vacuum in the presidency.
"My government is still working. I am available to go to Parliament as soon as they are ready to make a decision," Privert said in the televised address.
Haitian electoral officials recently announced that a new presidential election will be held in October with safeguards to avoid the fraud that marred last year's voting. But Merten said the U.S. was "disappointed" with this decision because impoverished Haiti could have avoided the leadership muddle it finds itself in now if it had stuck to agreed-upon timetables earlier.
"The longer it takes for Haiti to have a democratically elected president, the longer it will take for the United States to consider renewed partnerships to help Haiti confront its mounting economic, climatic, and health challenges," he said.
Dominican Republic: 130,000 more Haitian immigrants are in a situation of uncertainty
More than 130,000 Haitian immigrants, who benefited from the National Plan of Regularization for Foreigners (PNRE), are to be expelled from the Dominican Republic, as the temporary one year permit giving the right to the Haitian nationals to become established on Dominican territory expires on July 18th, 2016, learned GARR.
The Haitian immigrants affected by this measure will need to settle their status in the main office of Dominican Immigration before the scheduled date, stated the Major General Rubén Darío Paulino Sem, the General Director of Dominican migration during a recent interview with the Dominican press.
Former temporary license, certificate of non-penal history, medical examination, and a cost of 14,000-peso, are among some of the requirements put upon the Haitian nationals within the framework of the regularization process.
It should be noted that from June 17th, 2015, the date when the PNRE came to an end, until the second week of June 2016, GARR observed an intensification of repatriations. During this period, 112,625 people were documented crossing the border in inhumane conditions. Among them 69,677 returned on their own accord and 42,948 were repatriated. This does not take into account the thousands of others who were not recorded.
However, due to a lack of real social programs to give to Haitian citizens a desire to stay in Haiti, many haven’t stopped, at their own risk, from going to the nearby territory where they risked being killed or victimized by the Dominicans.
The most recent case occurred on June 13th, 2016. Kénol Unise. also known as Edson, a 29 –year-old Haitian national from Cerca-la-Souce, received two shots in the right thigh from the weapon of Dominican Sergeant Francisco Antonio Familia. The aggressor, who was assigned to the border post of Bánica in the Dominican province of Elias Piña's province, was quickly transferred to another military post with complete immunity, where he will be protected by his peers.
This regrettable incident arose as the victim went to the Dominican side to go work in a plantation in the zone of Bánica, a route which he made on a daily basis. However, on this day, he was refused access because he did not want to give any money to the Dominican serviceman. The latter shot him after having assaulted him verbally, according to eyewitnesses. His life was saved thanks to his parents, who transported him to a hospital in San Juan. His health is still at risk, advised a member of the Border Network Jeannot Succès (RFJS).
The GARR believes that it's time for the Haitian and Dominican governments to adopt measures to enforce the rights of Haitian workers who must cross the border.
It calls upon the Haitian government to reach an agreement with Dominican authorities to reach a moratorium to avoid the worsening of the migratory crisis if the migrants do not manage to satisfy the requirements of the Dominican authorities within the one month period that they have been granted.
D.R. – HAITI Eviction of those without documents, according to Amnesty: it is a shared irresponsibility
This report titled "Where are we going to live? Migratory flow and Statelessness in Haiti and in the Dominican Republic" published on June 14th, identifies clearly the negligence with which both governments managed the evictions and the supposedly spontaneous returns.
"One of the gravest consequences of this problem is the eviction from their own country of Dominicans of Haitian origin, in violation of the Dominican Republic’s obligation regarding international law. The Dominican Republic did not make public its protocol of eviction nor its methods," underlined the document
Furthermore, during 10 months, more than two hundred thousand people were left to their fate in camps in the region of Anse-à-Pitres. All this is due to bad planning and a lack of reaction and initiative on behalf of the Haitian authorities. The report also singles out organizations and international donors who gave very little interest to the matter.
Amnesty International made 3 big recommendations to both countries to remedy this situation: modify the Draft agreement on the mechanisms of repatriation, concluded in 1999; conclude a protocol of return; and implement it, to facilitate the legal return to the Dominican Republic of the Dominicans of Haitian origin, and the Haitian migrants expelled in any arbitrary way. Lastly, ratify and apply the Agreement relative to the status of the stateless persons and the Agreement on the reduction of the cases of statelessness.