Bush Promised Africa Money
He Doesn't Have
By KEVIN J. KELLEY
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. Bush appears set to clash with Congress over a $100 million
security pledge he made to East Africa during his recent visit to Africa.
Bush promised during his recent visit to Africa that the United States would greatly
increase its funding for development initiatives in the sub-Saharan region and for
anti-Aids programmes in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and several other countries. He also
pledged to provide a total of $100 million worth of security assistance to the three
East African countries as well as to Djibouti and Ethiopia.
But the amount of new aid that will actually be delivered may turn out to be
substantially less than what has been pledged.
The US Congress has yet to approve the added spending that was touted by the president
at each stop on his safari. And even though Mr Bush's own party controls both the
House and Senate, there are signs that US lawmakers may refuse to allocate the full
amounts of aid that Africa now expects to receive.
Members of Congress are feeling increasing pressure to economise following the
announcement last week that the US budget deficit will approach half-a-trillion
dollars this year. Proposed aid to Africa could well be vulnerable to expected moves
to narrow a $455 billion gap between the US government's revenues and its
expenditures.
Congress has already demonstrated its reluctance to fully fund what has repeatedly
been described as a five-year, $15 billion effort to fight Aids in 12 countries in
Africa and two in the Caribbean. A key committee in the US House last week voted down
a proposal to spend $3 billion in the first year of the anti-Aids initiative. The
panel instead approved $2 billion in spending - which is the amount that had actually
been requested by President Bush.
Advertising the Aids programme as a $15 billion package amounts to "a cruel hoax",
says Salih Booker, director of an Africa advocacy group in Washington.
Members of the Bush team have defended the action taken in Congress. In the first year
of the Africa Aids programme, "it's going to take less money to get the job done,"
said Joseph O'Neill, the top Aids official in the White House. And Jim Kolbe, a key
figure in Congress on this issue, said he was confident that the full $15 billion
would ultimately be appropriated. But Congressman Kolbe also said that President Bush
"continues to compound the problem" by presenting the $15 billion anti-Aids programme
as though it had already been fully approved.
Anti-Aids activists in the United States have generally welcomed the president's
initiative. Similarly, many Africa policy analysts in Washington say they have been
pleasantly surprised by the degree of attention Bush has paid to the continent. Some
of them believe that Bush is proving at least as sympathetic to Africa's needs as was
Bill Clinton. But even those impressed by Bush's rhetoric now wonder whether he will
apply the requisite pressure on Congress to translate his words into deeds.
Nearly a year and a half after he proposed to double US development aid for
sub-Saharan Africa and other poor regions, Congress has yet to appropriate any of the
additional money. Some research groups meanwhile note that the conditions to be
attached to this new aid, known as the Millennium Challenge Account, may prove so
stringent that only a very few African countries will qualify for the added help.
Advocates of increased assistance for Africa are not encouraged by the amounts of
money Bush seeks to spend on existing development programmes. The White House has
asked Congress to provide $21 million less for African development aid in 2004 than
was approved this year.
The Bush team is also seeking to cut US expenditures for peacekeeping operations in
Africa from $40 million to $24 million. Even deeper cuts are to be made in the
contributions the United States makes to United Nations peacekeeping missions in
Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone and Ethiopia/Eritrea.
In addition, the White House has yet to indicate how its promised $100 million in
security assistance will be shared among six East African nations. The anti-terrorism
funding is supposed to be provided over the course of 15 months, but US officials have
not said when the initiative will get underway.
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