Jim Baird Questions State Department Official On Resource Protection For Vulnerable Commodities

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At a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing before the Congressional recess, Rep. Jim Baird (R-IN) asked Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Michael Rigas how the State Department ensures foreign assistance reaches the intended recipients.

Transcript

00:00Representative yields back. With that, the representative from Indiana. Mr. Barrett is

00:06recognized for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate you being here,

00:11Mr. Secretary. And I guess my question focuses on the fact that your duties as a Deputy Secretary

00:20of Management and Resources, you oversee modernization and operational efficiency.

00:26In that vein, you know, I want to make sure that the, and we talk about soft diplomacy,

00:35and I'm interested in agriculture, so the commodities that end up going to some of these countries,

00:40I want to be sure that they actually reach those people that it was intended for. American

00:47farmers and ranchers, and we as a country as well, are giving people, but we also want

00:54to make sure that it gets to those that we intend it for go to. So, in that vein, I guess since

01:05your confirmation back in May, could you highlight, I want to give you the opportunity to highlight

01:10some of the inefficient areas that you found, and what processes you are using, or decisions

01:17you're using to improve those efficiencies, and make sure that we're being effective for the kinds

01:22of programs that we're operating here? Sure. Thank you for that question, Congressman.

01:27So, we've conducted an extensive review of the organization at the department, led by the

01:33undersecretaries at the department, who, at this point, we're all career foreign service officers,

01:38or career civil servants, who've been at the department for years, and have tremendous experience and

01:43knowledge about how things work, and how they don't work, and have experienced the department

01:49on a bipartisan basis through Republican administrations and Democrat administrations, and told us what

01:54they thought worked, where there were duplications, where there were offices that were not really

02:00performing well, how we could do a better job advancing America's foreign policy interests,

02:06and the president's foreign policy priorities. We looked at all the management functions in the

02:11department, and consolidated those, mostly into the management bureau, but every, many of the bureaus

02:19and offices had their own management functions that did human resources functions, and accounting

02:25functions, and those were all consolidated into a single executive management offices within the bureaus

02:32to allow for economies of scale, and to allow for efficiencies. So, we've done a lot of work to create

02:38these efficiencies across the department, and looking at how we do foreign assistance, there was a huge

02:44foreign assistance review that was done at the department before I arrived, that looked at how

02:50we were spending money, and that's been the result, what's resulted from that is the FY26 budget request, where we

02:57have the America First Opportunity Fund to create better accountability for how those monies are spent, and to

03:03ensure that they are spent to advance the secretary's priorities, and to ensure the president's foreign

03:09policy is faithfully implemented.

03:11So, continuing in that vein, you know, I had a chance to go to Africa a couple times, and one of the

03:18current concerns that I saw there was nefarious groups, or gangs, or thugs, in some ways, because those

03:25commodities end up being fungible, just like money. If you've got it, you've got control. Can you give me some

03:33insight into, or us, some insight into how you think we're improving monitoring where those commodities

03:40are going? So, I think for life-saving humanitarian aid and foreign assistance, you know, those programs

03:49were exempted from the humanitarian, or from the foreign assistance review, but this is the kind of

03:56thing that, as we take a closer look at how we do foreign assistance, it's making sure that these are,

04:03we have partners on the ground who are able to ensure that our foreign assistance is able to be

04:09delivered securely, and that it is safeguarded from these kinds of malevolent actions, and that other aid

04:17that is delivered is tied directly to a foreign policy priority that the president has. But if

04:24you've got sort of particular scenarios or examples in individual countries that you want us to look

04:30at, I'd be happy to look at that and make sure that, to the extent those kinds of activities were

04:35happening, or our aid was subject to inappropriate use, that we could take corrective action on that.

04:40And I thank you for mentioning, again, you mentioned it earlier, but the fact that those humanitarian

04:46efforts are exempted from this, from what we're talking about. So, with that, I've got about 17

04:53seconds less, and that's enough to just say thank you for what you do. Thank you, sir.

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