CNN
—
The United States is set to destroy nearly 500 metric tons of US-taxpayer funded emergency food meant for starving people around the world.
The high-energy, nutrient-dense biscuits have been sitting for months in a warehouse in Dubai, according to a former USAID official.
Now, because they expire this month, they will have to be destroyed – at an extra $100,000 charge to the American taxpayers.
The former official, who spoke anonymously to discuss the details, said the destruction of the critically needed food would not have happened prior to the Trump administration’s destruction of the US Agency for International Development.
“This is the definition of waste,” the former official said.
The Atlantic first reported on the impending destruction of the aid.
Before the administration dismantled USAID, citing alleged waste and fraud, personnel would have kept track of the expiration dates of the food aid. As the dates approached, they would have contacted colleagues to see who needed it, the former official explained, or it could have been donated.
The food could have been sent to places that desperately needed it, like Gaza.
Two rations of biscuits a day is enough to stop people from dying, the former official said but noted that they do not replace real food. They made “perfect sense” in the catastrophic situation of Gaza “because there is no clean water, there’s no way to cook, no oil, no fires,” they said.
The Gaza response has been demobilized, and the people who managed the logistics and planning were fired, the official told CNN.
“It’s just heartbreaking to see with these biscuits, because they’re the perfect emergency food aid, it’s hard to see them go to waste,” they said.
A State Department spokesperson confirmed that emergency food will be destroyed because they were unable to use it before its expiration.
“The expired lot was acquired under the last administration, and purchased as a contingency for needs beyond projections, resulting in the inability to deplete before expiration,” they said. “Unfortunately, this risk is part of always being ready to respond to life-saving humanitarian needs with consumable commodities in remote locations around the world.”
“USAID has had to destroy commodities under previous administrations with similar circumstances – this is not unique,” the spokesperson said.
They said in a statement that the biscuits are “specifically meant for populations that are moving from one place to another such as in the wake of a natural disaster or fleeing from conflict.”
“We currently have high energy biscuits in warehouses around the world, for those most in need,” the spokesperson said. “We always want to avoid destroying any commodities and do our best to find alternate uses for it.”
