Insights
Rats and audits : A tale of dissatisfaction I once quipped that an island doomsday apocalyptic nightmare that would cause me to force my way onto a plane and get off the island as quickly as possible – consequences be dammed – would be an outbreak of rabies .
Consider the scenario : An island filled with hordes of dogs that rank somewhere between discarded pets and full-blown feral creatures . A diseased rat scurries from the hold of a Kiowa Line vessel and bites a marauding mongrel . The ensuing nervous system paralysis spreads like a West Maui wildfire as dogs bite each other and their human tormentors , aided by the close quarters and communal living common to the islands , killing in a manner both slow and excruciating ( at least according to Gizmodo ; neither the World Health Organization nor the U . S . Centers for Disease Control opted to use adjectives , but noted fatality as almost a certainty once symptoms begin .)
Given the near-total lack of medical care for humans , never mind that veterinary care is barely a concept , the scenario was not so far-fetched .
Until I discovered that rats don ’ t carry rabies . My brain must have been addled by the rats running across my bed at night .
A recent report about federal financial tracking of the Compact of Free Association funds has left me similarly addled .
The Government Accountability Office , the congressional watchdog that audits the use of U . S . taxpayer funds , reported that several U . S . agencies , notably the Departments of the Interior and Health and Human Services , had been less than careful with how they oversaw American money in the Pacific . That report from September with
By Gabriel McCoard
the scintillating title “ Agencies Should Enhance Procedures to Address Millions of Dollars in Questionable Spending ,” speaks for itself . Well , not really .
Briefly put , under the Compacts of Free Association , the three freely associated states — Palau , the Federated States of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands — receive various forms of financial assistance from the U . S .
I will scream about this until I pass out from lack of oxygen : the compacts are not being renegotiated . The compacts are permanent agreements and remain in effect until and unless one of the countries in the agreement begins the withdrawal and termination process .
Individual U . S . laws that authorized and appropriated COFA spending will expire , as will specific funding agreements between the U . S . and respective nations .
This is not a hair-splitting distinction but fundamental to diplomacy . The compacts themselves are not subject to renegotiation . The financial assistance provided under the compacts is what is up for renegotiation .
When Congress appropriates money for COFA funding , which largely comes in the form of grants , the U . S . Treasury first doles out this money to certain government agencies to disperse . In the case of COFA aid , DOI and HHS are responsible for dispersing these grants to the respective COFA republic , or , in the preferred language of such , for administering the grant program .
Enter GAO , a semi-independent agency of Congress with the mandate to perform audits of U . S . - funded spending , which is to say the dispersal of tax dollars .
Due to the amounts in question , each of the receiving nations is responsible
for providing an audit of the use of such funds to the U . S . agency providing it . This is known as a “ single audit .” The agency , DOI or HHS , has six months to issue a “ management decision ” for each finding that the audit raised . Mostly these have to do with questionable spending under the grant , and the agency ’ s management decision must address those questions .
What GAO found was that both HHS and DOI could not show that they resolved several long-standing concerns from the audits , particularly in the Marshall Islands and the FSM . In the case of the health agency , it did not respond to questionable spending in the Marshall Islands dating to 2010 . These costs amounted to over $ 600,000 . As to the DOI , there were questioned costs in the Marshall Islands and the FSM dating to 2008 . Despite attestations to GAO , they could not substantiate that they had in fact developed procedures to resolve audit concerns .
GAO recommended a series of process changes for the issuing of management decisions . Much like a legal research memo about a deliberately ambiguous statute whose conclusion is , “ it could use clarification ,” GAO ’ s
I will scream about this until I pass out from lack of oxygen : the compacts are not being renegotiated . The compacts are permanent agreements and remain in effect until and unless one of the countries in the agreement begins the withdrawal and termination process .
response was bureaucratic , tepid and anticlimactic .
My only surprise was that the disputed amounts were so low . The fact that the audits raised suspicions and that those suspicions were ignored for well over a decade , was not a shock .
As it turns out , what one should focus on the most is usually right in front of you .
Why did it take so long for anyone to notice these concerns , or has ignored your own information simply been built into the mutual expectations of bilateral relationships ?
Hawaii ’ s own experts , after all , warned of wildfire dangers long before this year ’ s hellscape .
As for my rabid horror-fantasy , the real health risks in the islands are much more obvious . As recent articles from Palau show , almost a quarter of the population live with diabetes . Most of these people are undiagnosed and untreated .
My only surprise was that the percentage was so low .
Gabriel McCoard is an attorney who previously worked in Palau and Chuuk State . Send feedback to gabrieljmccoard @ hotmail . com .
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The opinions expressed here are solely the author ' s and do not reflect the editorial position of the Pacific Island Times .