Steve Peacock's U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor

Obama Hands Out Free Health Care to Pakistanis

The Obama administration is preparing to give free health care to Pakistanis even as Americans who cannot get health insurance because of pre-existing conditions soon will be rejected by domestic programs due to a lack of funds.

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 U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor 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.

A similar version of this article was published via WND on Feb. 19, 2013. Under agreement with WND, rights have reverted back to the author, Steve Peacock.

Patriot Update: U.S. Cost of U.N. “Rule of Law” Project: $500 million

My latest from Patriot Update:

U.S. Cost of U.N. “Rule of Law” Project: $500 million

A half-billion-dollar Obama Administration program to help nations comply with United Nations-sanctioned governance reform has rolled out its first round of awards to several government-contracting behemoths.

The International Rule of Law Technical Assistance Services program, which Obama unveiled through the U.S. Agency for International Development, will assist governments around the globe in reforming their justice, educational, and other systems based on U.N. “rule of law” principles.

Continued at PatriotUpdate.com...

Spreading the G.O.L.D.: U.S. to Spark Small Biz Growth

Small businesses soon can expect a boost of support from the Obama Administration, which is launching the Growth Oriented Local Development, or GOLD, program -- in the Southeastern European nation of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Obama through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) last week alerted vendors to potential program-contracting opportunities via a presolicitation notice that U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor located during routine database research.

Despite an end to civil war fifteen years ago -- and in spite of about $8 billion in post-conflict, international donor support -- that nation continues to lag "behind its neighbors’ political and economic progress," USAID says in its Country Development Cooperation Strategy 2012-2016 (.pdf, 18 MB).

The "overarching objective" of the U.S. "is to help a stable, prosperous, sovereign, democratic, and multi-ethnic BiH become fully integrated into Euro-Atlantic institutions (the EU and NATO)." Critical to achieving U.S. foreign policy objectives are programs centering on "youth, civil society, empowering women, and inter-ethnic reconciliation," the strategy indicates.

USAID will issue a formal Request for Proposals for the GOLD project around Feb. 15. The agency said in a presolicitation notice that it expects to jointly fund the program in conjunction with the Swedish International Development Agency, or SIDA.

USAID stated, albeit vaguely, several project goals including:

Improving local economic development management capacity;

Spurring economic activity through increased public-private partnerships;

Strengthening private sector capacity, "resulting in increased skill levels of employees in the private sector and an increase in the number of local supply chain networks and the economic value they generate."

USAID did not disclose GOLD's estimated cost.

Source document: Solicitation #SOL-168-13-000002.

FOR FURTHER REPORTING ON THE U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, PLEASE VISIT THE MONITOR'S USAID PAGE.

U.S. Spending to Prevent New 'Fiscal Cliff'

Millions from taxpayers used to prevent collapse of kingdom

Congress and the Obama administration have averted, for now, plunging the nation over the so-called “fiscal cliff” by postponing spending cuts and raising taxes on American families by $620 billion and confirming plans to try to bill taxpayers for another $1 trillion.

Now the White House is spending millions collected from those same taxpayers to avoid another “fiscal cliff” – this time in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

The payments are going to contractors who are tasked with keeping Jordan and other similarly situated nations from falling off those financial precipices.

Part of the solution rests in more privatization of government services as well as in the creation of Public-Private-Partnerships, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development.

In Jordan, for example, citizen uprisings have led the government to run a budget deficit of nearly $1.5 billion, equivalent to about 12 percent of its GDP, the agency says.

The U.S. has proposed that Jordan “merge, eliminate, or reclassify 22 autonomous public institutions” as a cost-saving measure.

The Obama administration sees itself having a stake in this reform because, as the Congressional Research Service describes that relationship, Jordan is a critical ally in light of its role in the Arab-Israeli peace process.

Additionally, its geographic position, “wedged between Israel, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, has made it vulnerable to the strategic designs of its more powerful neighbors,” CRS says in a 2012 report made public by the Federation of American Scientists, “but has also given Jordan an important role as a buffer between these potential adversaries.”

Maintaining the stability of Jordan’s monarchy, CRS says, “is a key [U.S.] policy priority, particularly as political change makes the region less predictable.”

The issuance of government debt, combined with financial help from Persian Gulf and international allies, has helped to finance the Jordanian deficit. But given the state of the global economy – compounded by rising Jordanian government borrowing costs and higher interest rates – USAID says, “there is no guarantee that additional resources will continue to flow from donors.”

There is no guarantee, that is, except from the U.S., which recently extended for another year the contract for the Jordan Fiscal Reform Project II. USAID sees FRP II as “a key part of Jordan’s economic reform efforts to address the negative impacts of the Arab Spring.”

USAID exercised the final one-year option through October 2014 with vendor DAI/Nathan Group, enabling the company to continue advising the government of Jordan. The firm in 2009 secured a five-year $38.5 million contract to implement the Government Financial Management Information System, or GFMIS, for Jordan.

USAID on Jan. 6 said, however, that the new contract extension – which raises the ceiling to $43 million – is necessary as it also expands the project’s scope of work, according to a Justification for Other Than Full and Open Competition, or JOFOC, document that U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor discovered via routine database research.

The extension comes within months of a U.S. agreement to provide an additional $360 million in assistance to Jordan. That federal infusion includes $184 million in cash devoted to relieving Jordan’s “fiscal pressures” and another $29 million “to support King Abdullah’s vision for political development,” according to an agency announcement.

The U.S. overall has reduced aid to Jordan under Obama, diving from $938 million in base and supplemental appropriations in FY 2008 and decreasing each subsequent year. This reduction likewise applies to the White House’s $670 million request for FY 2013.

Expanding the scope of FRP II allows DAI/Nathan Group to shift its focus to the creation of a more ideal regulatory environment for PPPs and privatization.

Such an environment, the agency anticipates, will reduce Jordanian government expenditures while improving the quality of governmental services. These developments subsequently will spark economic growth.

Ending FRP II prematurely, USAID maintains, could reduce confidence between the two governments as well as with international financial entities such as the IMF and the World Bank.

Source document: Solicitation #EEM-I-08-07-00009-00

A similar version of this article originally appeared via WND.com Jan. 8, 2013. Rights have reverted back to the author, Steve Peacock, under agreement with WND.

USAID Still Seeks Contractors for Syrian Operations

Private contractors capable of helping the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) prepare for potential future actions in Syria still are being sought by the agency.

USAID's Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) last week extended until Dec. 28 the deadline for Personal Service Contract (PSC) applications for two positions based in Turkey:  OTI Country Representative-Syria (Solicitation #SOL-OTI-13-000010) and OTI Deputy Country Representative-Syria (Solicitation #SOL-OTI-13-000011).

USAID in 1994 created OTI:

as a distinct operating unit within USAID to help local partners advance peace and democracy in priority conflict-prone countries. Seizing critical windows of opportunity, OTI works on the ground to provide fast, flexible, short-term assistance targeted at key transition needs.

Both solicitations provided an extensive overview of general OTI goals and functions, but provided few specifics about Syrian activities other than to say the Country Representative, as a member of the:

Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance (DCHA)/OTI Middle East (ME) Regional Team, reports to the OTI Regional Team Leader, and is based in Turkey. There may be substantial travel to countries in the region if/when conditions allow.

[The] principal responsibility will be development, oversight and management of DCHA/OTI's Syria country program. The incumbent will be called upon to represent OTI's mission and programs to senior-level government officials, in-country visitors, senior officials from other international organizations, bilateral donors and local government officials.

The Deputy Country Representative's principal responsibility simply "is to support the OTI Country Representative in the development, oversight, and management of the DCHA/OTI Syria country program."

The pay range for the Country Representative is $84,697 - $110,104, whereas the deputy slot offers $71,674 - $93,175.

FOR FURTHER REPORTING ON THE U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, PLEASE VISIT THE MONITOR'S USAID PAGE.

U.S. to Help Boost Business Competitiveness -- In Ethiopia

A $20 million contract to spark "private sector competitiveness" in Ethiopia has been awarded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). As U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor reported earlier this year, the agency's Finance and Business Services (FaBS) Project seeks to increase Ethiopian industry's access to financing in order to drive "sustainable economic growth"while reducing poverty  (Monitor, April 26, 2012).

CARANA Corp., an Arlington, Virginia-based consulting company, will carry out the project for USAID over the next five years. CARANA in October separately secured a $12 million USAID contract to execute the Nigeria Expanded Trade and Transport (NEXTT) program, whose goal "is to support the Nigerian government's efforts to expand trade domestically... and improve its efficiency so that trade, particularly in agricultural products, can provide inclusive economic growth and development of Nigeria."

Source document: Contract award #AID-663-C-13-00001

FOR MORE REGIONAL COVERAGE, SEE THE MONITOR'S AFRICA PAGE AND ETHIOPIA PAGE.

FOR FURTHER REPORTING ON THE U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, PLEASE VISIT THE MONITOR'S USAID PAGE.

U.S. to Build Maternity Compounds Across Mozambique

The Obama Administration is planning to build multiple health-services facilities across the African nation of Mozambique, where up to sixteen complexes will be constructed in rural locations. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) this morning unveiled the Health Infrastructure Development Program (HIDP) via the FedBizOpps database, where it issued an announcement seeking to pre-qualify construction firms.

The general goal of HIDP is to support the Mozambican Ministry of Health (MISAU) in the provision of improved health care services, according to the presolicitation notice. Each of the rural health centers will contain "a maternity unit, an attending or exam unit, a house for pregnant mothers and staff housing."

USAID already has selected contracting giant AECOM to:

manage the planning, design and construction of the facilities. Construction, remodeling, and rehabilitation under the HIDP will be carried out by Contractors under a number of separate contracts. AECOM is not a party to those contracts, but will serve as Technical Advisor to USAID, providing independent verification of the quality of the construction and rehabilitation work and the amount and value of work completed.

The estimated cost of the constructrion phase, not including the arrangement with AECOM, is $16 million.

Source document: Solicitation #SOL-656-13-000004.

Obama Seeks to Accelerate Access to Health Care -- Now in Uganda

The Obama Administration is continuing its push to expand citizen access to health care--and it now seeks to accomplish that task on behalf of the citizens of Uganda.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) acknowledged this morning that soon it will seek a contractor to run its new Ugandan health program. According to a presolicitation notice released today that U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor located via routine database research, USAID around Dec. 20 will release a Request for Proposals for the endeavor.

The stated intermediate goals of the initiative are:

1) Expanded availability of health services by private service providers;

2) Increased affordability of private health services and products; and:

3) Improved quality of private health sector facilities and services.

The agency released the document to alert industry that it seeks to:

identify a qualified contractor to implement this new program.  The primary objective of the program is to support the professional development of Private Health Providers/Private for Profit (PHP/PFP) providers, selected private sector run company clinics, private health sector regulatory entities and commercial pharmaceuticals firms.

USAID did not disclose the program's estimated cost.

Source document: Solicitation #SOL-617-13-000005.

Related coverage:

Feds Seeks Help in Spending Billions in Uganda More Effectively

Obama Has Taxpayers Funding Graduate Programs in Uganda

USAID Seeks Leader for Central African Enviro Program (NEWS BRIEF)

A 25-year environmental endeavor in Central Africa is being extended through 2020, and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is looking for a team leader/director to run the program. The goal of the USAID Central Africa Regional Program for the Environment (CARPE) is to "maintain the ecological functioning of the Central Africa tropical forests and its biodiversity," according to a personal services contract notice that U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor located. The $13 million annual program is based in Kinsasha, Democratic Republic of the Congo. The position, which is part of a five-member management team, pays in the $100,000-$130,000 range.

Source document: Solicitation #SOL-623-13-000002.

Hurricane Sandy: Another Example of Why We Need to Invest More in America, Less Around the Globe (COMMENTARY)

I have an idea how we as a nation can better cope with the financial burden that nature has imposed upon us in this post-hurricane environment of devastation on the East Coast: Assess and then cancel various programs that U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the U.S. Trade & Development Agency currently are carrying out or are planning to implement across the globe.

For the sake of full disclosure, I say this not only as a concerned taxpayer who continues to advocate streamlining (not the elimination) of foreign aid, but as a human being who lives one mile from the beach on the battered New Jersey coast -- someone who is doing significantly better than many of his Shore neighbors, but who is temporarily displaced nonetheless.

Before I continue, also keep in mind that this is less political -- insofar as partisan politics -- than it appears. Yes, the Obama Administration currently is executing the following initiatives. But as I've said before, it's a power thing, not an Obama thing. Such endeavors took place under Clinton and Bush, and in various forms will continue under future presidents.

Here we go:

Cancel the planned development of Ph.D. and masters degree programs for which USAID intends to fund in a Ugandan university. Use that money in schools across New Jersey, New York, or Connecticut. 

Cancel the nearly $1 billion in construction projects that USAID has planned for the Palestinians.  Use it to rebuild homes, businesses, and infrastucture destroyed during the hurricane. OUR hurricane.

Those business start-up projects in The Philippines? Cancel them. Most of the businesses in my area are closed, hopefully just temporarily. many, presumbaly, will go under. Tell the Filipinos they have to wait. 

The groundwater cleanup projects in for which USTDA paid the cost of U.S. industry reps to fly to China to boost that sector? Stop such subsidies, damnit. I'm guessing the groundwater between Seaside Heights and Point Pleasant (among other locations) could use some ameliorating. 

The list is seemningly endless. There are bigger and even more controversial projects, I am sure, the billions is no so-called "drug war" contracts among one of the more insane categories.

Oh, okay, just one more example (out of many). I know it amounts to peanuts, but the $322,000 that Department of State just spent on a 10-animal dog kennel in Iraq could have been used to rebuild damaged animal -- and human -- shelters here on the East Coast instead. Just sayin.' -- Steve Peacock