Food-for-Peace Program and the Foreign Military Sales Program in Zaire

The House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Africa requested reviews of the Food-For-Peace Program and the Foreign Military Sales Program in Zaire. Under the Food-For-Peace Program, the United States did not end its involvement with the delivery of the commodities. Because of previous program abuses, the U.S. Mission attempted to control and monitor the in-country distribution of rice delivered in 1978. U.S. officials believed that this resulted in a decrease of abuse, but there was little evidence to either substantiate or refute this conclusion since the monitoring effort was limited. Other commodities imported under the program were processed before consumption. They were handled by fewer distributers and appeared to be better controlled. Controlling the deposit and release of local currency generated by the sale of the commodities was also a problem. It was questionable whether food could be provided at less-than-market prices in food-scarce Zaire. Further U.S. Mission involvement might be necessary to minimize abuse. Zaire purchased military equipment from the United States using foreign military sales (FMS) credits. The use of equipment purchased this way was restricted to internal security, legitimate self-defense, participation in regional or collective arrangements consistent with the charter of the United Nations, or in other activities helpful to the economic and social development of the country. The U.S. agencies in Zaire performed limited and unscheduled monitoring of FMS equipment and maintenance. GAO felt that the country was too large, the equipment too widely dispersed, and the available transportation and communication too inadequate to carry out an effective monitoring program. Without a capability to monitor equipment use, diversion and misuse could have occurred. As for equipment maintenance, routine aircraft maintenance was not much of a problem due to the presence of industry technical representatives and the availability of spare parts. However, the Zairian military did not have a reliable system of property accountability and could not readily determine how many vehicles were currently in inventory, or their operating condition. Officials acknowledged a problem of communication and coordination among those military logistics elements responsible for insuring proper ordering and distribution of spare parts. The weaknesses in the Zairian military supply system presented a serious limitation to the effective maintenance.