Refugees

Ethnic Turks began fleeing Bulgaria in large numbers in May 1989 to escape oppression by the Bulgarian government. Three months later, about 320,000 of these refugees had arrived in Turkey; about 100,000 Bulgarian ethnic Turks later returned to Bulgaria. Congress earmarked about $10 million later that year for food, shelter, and other basics to help Turkey assimilate the remaining 220,000 Bulgarian ethnic Turks. GAO reviewed the project to assist Turkey with the resettlement and assimilation of these refugees. This report (1) determines how the project to assist the Bulgarian ethnic Turks was developed, (2) assesses the management and progress of the project, and (3) identifies the amount of project funds distributed so far.

GAO found that: (1) State's Bureau of Refugee Programs agreed with UNDP to carry out the project, and UNDP and the government of Turkey agreed to implement the $9,957,000 U.S.-funded project on June 15, 1990; (2) the project was to provide training for 10,500 unskilled refugees, job placement assistance for 25,000 other refugees, and Turkish orientation classes for all 35,500 refugees; (3) although State, the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, and UNDP initially reported successful progress, only about 37 percent of projected funds had been expended as of July 1991, and the project was not likely to meet its objectives by its scheduled June 1992 end; (4) the Bureau of Refugee Programs and the U.S. Embassy at Ankara were not adequately monitoring project progress and expenditures; (5) a review indicated that at least $285,000 had been improperly expended for vocational training classes that were not held; and (6) after the review, UNDP reported that it recovered those funds.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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