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Following the discovery of a massive bribery scandal in USAID, Small Business Management (SBA) has ordered a full audit of all government contractors who have won grants under the agency’s business development program over the past 15 years.
In a letter obtained by Fox News Digital, SBA administrator Kelly Loeffler said the scale of the USAID scam is “a reflection of a systematic obstacle in surveillance and accountability.” She further stated that the fraud was “not an isolated incident.”
In response, Loeffler directed associate manager Tre Pennie, who oversees the government contracts awarded by the SBA, to “act decisively” to crack down on the agency’s potential similar abuse.
Loeffler instructed Penny to immediately begin a full-scale audit of agency awards officers dating back to 2010.
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“The role of a federal contract officer is not ritualistic or self-dealing. Rather, it is an immeasurable position of authority and fiduciary responsibility,” Loeffler said. “The contracting process must be transparent and built on merit, not personal interest.”
This comes after the USAID, an agency tasked with managing private foreign aid, was essentially dismantled by reducing Doge’s waste, fraud and abuse under President Elon Musk and Donald Trump. The move was filled with massive protests from Democrats who claimed that reducing USAID would cause beneficiaries around the world to poverty and harm.
Despite allegations of how good the agency is doing, it has recently been discovered that an influential USAID contractor named Roderick Watson can implement a massive, long-term bribery scheme dating back to 2013.
Watson, 57, pleaded guilty to “civil servant bribery,” according to a press release from DOJ.
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Because the protesters hold Prasad, Pete Marrocco, designated by the Associate Administrator of the United States Organization for International Development (USAID), will attend a meeting with members of Congress on March 5, 2025, to discuss foreign aid at Capitol Hill, Washington, DC.
According to the DOJ, Watson sold his influence in 2013, with Vistant owner Walter Barnes and Apprio owner Darryl Britt hiding the truck by funneling in return through subcontractor Paul Young.
According to a press release from DOJ, Britt and Burns “we regularly poured bribes into Watson, including cash, laptops, NBA game suite tickets, country club weddings, two residential mortgages, a mobile phone and relative duties. Invoice.”
The statement said Watson “is allegedly received a bribe valued at over $1 million as part of the scheme.
Vistant was awarded in November 2023 as part of a joint venture. This is a maximum of $800 million contract, where one of those contracts focuses on “various issues affecting the root causes of irregular migration from Central America to the US.”
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A few days later, the contract was cancelled after USAID published a notice that Vistant had been excluded from the government contract due to “evidence of evidence of the implementation of business integrity or lack of integrity.”
The joint venture then sued the government for being on its exclusion list, rehears the contract and was given a $10,000 payment in August 2024.
In her letter, Loeffler said the USAID scandal “represents the collapse of a very protective measure that is supposed to protect the US taxpayer dollars and ensure fair access to legal small businesses.”
She denounced the Biden administration for awarding a $800 million contract to Vistant despite being labelled “absent in integrity and integrity” by USAID.
“The fact that federal officials were able to act as link pins for sustainable, large-scale fraud businesses speaks to the breakdown of the contractual environment that demands failures in internal control and immediate revisions,” Loeffler said.
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Small and Medium Business Management Building (US Government Accountability Bureau)
She said the SBA played a “significant role” in federal contracts and “will no longer hold back while abuse is made at the cost that taxpayers and small businesses deserve.”
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Loeffler said the agency’s audit begins with high and limited competitive contracts within the SBA’s 8(a) business development program. The findings will be featured to the US Office of Inspectors (OIG) and DOJ.
Any employee or company found in violation of SBA ethical standards will be referred to the appropriate authorities for those who commit criminal misconduct, and the SBA will help the DOJ recover the misappropriated funds, Loeffler said.
“We do not allow public trust to be quietly eroded at backdoor trading and unconfirmed discretion,” Loffler said.
“We borrowed it from American small businesses to make this right,” she continued. “Your office has the authority to act decisively and now there is a delegation.”
Peter Pinedo is a political writer for Fox News Digital.
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