Fast forward to 2020.
USAID announced that it had pledged US$19.8 million for a new Feed the Future programme in Zimbabwe called Fostering Agribusiness for Resilient Markets (FARM).
The programme was to be implemented in Manicaland and Masvingo. The five–year contract was awarded to Chemonics International, a Washington-DC based company. Chemonics was one of the top contractors for USAID though it has been cited in numerous congressional reports for doing shoddy jobs.
Its performance was questioned in Afghanistan, Haiti and in the US$9.5 billion global health management supply chain. It has done such poor work, but continues to be awarded contracts, that one congressional report, in which it is cited, is entitled: Rewarding bad actors: why do poor performing contractors continue to get government business?
Chemonics made headlines in Zimbabwe in February 2018 when it ordered malaria test kits worth nearly US$500 000 which had been rejected by the Zimbabwe government. The Para-Check test kits were rejected by medical practitioners in Zimbabwe in 2012 because they were not giving accurate results.
Chemonics did the same thing in Afghanistan where it built grain storage silos and greenhouses which locals never used because they had not been consulted. When asked, the farmers said they would never have used the silos because their fruits, grains and vegetables would have been easy prey for thieves.
But that was not all. Chemonics had to pay nearly US$500 000 in damages after it was accused of discriminating against blacks.
One of the reasons why Chemonics allegedly continued to get USAID contracts was that one of its owners had connections to the aid agency. One report quoted the Centre for Public Integrity as saying that Chemonics gets 90 percent of its income from the US taxpayer through USAID. It said Chemonics controlling owner, Scott Spangler, served as a senior USAID director under President Bush senior.
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