Foreign Aid -- $9.4 Million to Kyrgyz Republic for Anti-Corruption, Good Government Efforts

The federal government has allotted $9.4 million to support rule of law and anti-corruption activity in the Kyrgyz Republic.

The funds will go “to strengthen the transparency and accountability of the judiciary and other key government institutions,” the grant listing says.

Formerly a member of the Soviet Union, Kyrgyzstan is a landlocked country in Central Asia with 6.5 million people, slightly less than the population of Indiana.

The American money would be used to “strengthen the judiciary, strengthen justice and legal services to address legal problems, resolve disputes, and protect fundamental rights and thus close the justice gap,” among other things.

The goals sound noble, “ensuring that the systems and services are more responsive to the population as a whole” and strengthening “open government policies and the delivery of services across sectors in a more transparent, accountable, and citizen-responsive manner.”

But that $9.4 million could be used here to address our many domestic problems, not the least of which is the billions in unemployment fraud that scammers have perpetrated.

An estimated $700 billion in unemployment benefits have been paid since the beginning of the pandemic and 10% of those benefits were fraudulently claimed, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

It is the biggest public fraud in the history of the USA – between $70 billion and $200 billion stolen by criminals, con-artists, and crime syndicates.

The billions of dollars in defrauded unemployment benefits hits hard when the country is trying to get back to “normal.”

So, one wonders whether sending $9.4 million to help the Kyrgyz Republic battle corruption – when we haven’t rooted out domestic corruption – is the right move now.

The #WasteOfTheDay is presented by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.