Your Tax Dollars Hard at Play

I recently completed a 10 day training from Dec. 5 – Dec. 15 at a hotel and conference center just outside of Pretoria.  The training consisted of two parts.  The first is what Peace Corps calls In Service Training (IST), which is basically a follow up and continuation of all things covered during Pre Service Training (PST), such as safety, health, language, etc. conducted roughly three months after the beginning of service.  And yes, if you were wondering, Peace Corps like any other government organization, is obsessed with acronyms in the quest to form a regular alphabet soup of different terms.

The second part of the training was what is termed Life Skills Training and involved bringing in a “counterpart”, basically someone from your community who you can work with on projects, to receive extensive training in HIV/AIDS education.  The idea is that you and your counterpart will take such knowledge back to your town and village and use it to educate others about the disease.

Overall, I found the training, both IST and Life Skills, to be quite enjoyable and relatively productive.  I learned a good deal of new information about HIV and AIDS, which helped to dispel some misinformation and myths at the same time.  I also made large improvements in Afrikaans language skills and came up with some concrete and realistic ideas for projects when I return to my site a.k.a. town.  Such progress was all very positive and is what is supposed to occur at training.

What I had not expected, however, and what constitutes the topic of this post, was the unbelievable luxury and expense of the entire event.  We were not put up in a Holiday Inn but rather a lush conference center complete with air-conditioned rooms, cable TV, pool, jacuzzi, sauna, gym, volleyball court, and Wi-Fi, all overlooking a gorgeous lake.  Every meal was an all-you-can-eat buffet provided by skilled chefs who cooked up all kinds of specialized delicacies and desserts.  Tea and coffee breaks were provided in both mid-morning and mid-afternoon along with pastries and various snacks. 

Naturally, having been deprived for several months of even small amenities like a hot shower, I, like all of my fellow Peace Corps volunteers, were in heaven and made ample use of all the food and facilities.  Amidst such delirium, though, I could not believe how fortunate we were, and decided to do some research in to how such a lavish event could have occurred given that we are supposed to be living simple lifestyles that mimic those of the people we work and live with.

Come to find out, our training was funded not just by the Peace Corps but also by something called the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).  Just to provide a little background, PEPFAR was originally started by President George W. Bush in 2003 as an initiative to fight HIV/AIDS around the world by increasing access to Anti-Retroviral drugs (ARVs) that help to slow the disease in a person’s body, reducing new infections through education, and providing better care for those already with the disease.  $15 billion was pledged to be used over 5 years.

In 2008, the program was reauthorized with a commitment of up to $48 billion over the ensuing five years.  8 years since its inception, most seem to agree that the money has done some good.  Based on a report published in Annals of Internal Medicine (www.annals.org/content/150/10/688.full.pdf), PEPFAR so far has been responsible for the avoidance of 1.1 million deaths as well as a decline in AIDS-related deaths by 10% in countries that have received funding.  In my experience in the Peace Corps so far, President Bush is not a popular character neither among Americans nor South Africans, but even his harshest critics contend that the establishment of PEPFAR is to his credit and one of the few positives to come out of his administration.

As a person with a libertarian bent, I, personally, automatically question the use of taxpayer money for what basically amounts to foreign aid since I’m not sure that such assistance is the proper role of government (though I suppose one could make the same argument regarding the existence of the Peace Corps).  Regardless, I cannot argue the fact that lives seem to have been saved and some positive outcomes achieved.  What I can argue is whether such funding is being used efficiently and for its intended purposes.  Based on the PEPFAR-funded training that I just attended, I am seriously in doubt.

According to my calculations done based on rates obtained from the hotel and conference center’s website (http://www.roodevallei.co.za/docs/Tariff-Info-Sheet.pdf), 534,050 Rand ($66,756) was spent on the Peace Corps volunteers alone.  When you add in the cost for our counterparts, language and culture trainers, as well as other miscellaneous items, the total cost of the training comes out to 745,125 Rand ($93,141).  It is my opinion that even this is a conservative estimate given that it does not include the cost of meals or accommodation for any other Peace Corps staff (such as the Country Director, Director of Training & Programming, Assistant Peace Corps Directors, drivers, and Peace Corps Volunteer trainers from previous groups) nor does it capture the cost of the outside trainers such as the AIDS trainers or those from the South African Department of Education.  Additionally, dinner was catered as a separate event twice and more than one conference room was used almost every day of training.  All of the things just mentioned would have incurred costs over and above that included in my estimate.

It is my opinion that the use of such a lavish hotel and conference center was inappropriate and a waste of PEPFAR’s resources that could have been otherwise directed to actual HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention.  I feel that a much humbler venue with much humbler meals could have served the same purpose at a significantly lower cost.  Also, given that many of our counterparts from our communities still live very modest lives, they certainly did not expect such luxury and part of me is worried that the use of such facilities will engender the view that the Americans have unlimited funds which can be given to South Africans.  That type of dependency mindset is exactly the opposite of what we are trying to promote.

Based on what I observed it training, it was with very little surprise then that I found out that the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services published a report on June 15 of this year criticizing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is responsible for administering PEPFAR dollars, for its sloppy handling of funds.  An extract from the report reads (http://oig.hhs.gov/oas/reports/region4/41004006.pdf):

“ Our review found that CDC did not always monitor recipients’ use of President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) funds in accordance with departmental and other Federal requirements…  [M]ost of the award files did not include all required documents or evidence to demonstrate that CDC performed required monitoring on all cooperative agreements.  Of the 30 cooperative agreements in our sample, the award file for only 1 agreement contained all required documents.  The remaining 29 award files were incomplete.  In addition, 14 of 21 files were missing audit reports…  The lack of required documentation demonstrates that CDC has not exercised proper stewardship over Federal PEPFAR funds because it did not consistently follow departmental and other Federal requirements in monitoring PEPFAR recipients.  “

In the end, I am not surprised as it is human nature to overspend when it is not one’s own money that is being consumed.  This applies whether it be corporations (eating at overly expensive restaurants and putting it on the company card), non-profits (administering grants without sufficient oversight), and most especially to government, as we can see in this instance.  Regardless of why it happens, waste of resources contributed by other people is wrong, and we should continue to try to take measures to limit its occurrence.  Finally, it is simply a reminder, especially for myself, of why a healthy skepticism of government, even when working for one, is always a good thing.

Note: If anyone would like to view or help fact check my calculations, let me know, and I can send you the Excel spreadsheet

South African English Word of the Day

dorp - a small rural town or village (often used to suggest that a place is backward or unimpressive)

I’m tired of this city life.  I want to go back to the dorp.