Trump administration to keep only 294 USAid staff out of over 10,000 globally: Sources
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Sources familiar with the plan said only 294 staff at the agency would be allowed to keep their jobs, including only 12 in the Africa bureau and eight in the Asia bureau.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump's administration plans to keep fewer than 300 staff at the US Agency for International Development (USAid) out of the agency's worldwide total of more than 10,000, four sources told Reuters on Feb 6.
Washington's primary humanitarian aid agency has been a target of a government reorganisation programme spearheaded by businessman Elon Musk
The four sources familiar with the plan said only 294 staff at the agency would be allowed to keep their jobs, including only 12 in the Africa bureau and eight in the Asia bureau.
"That's outrageous," said Mr J. Brian Atwood, who served as head of USAid for more than six years, adding the mass termination of personnel would effectively kill an agency that has helped keep tens of millions of people around the world from dying.
"A lot of people will not survive," said Mr Atwood, now a senior fellow at Brown University's Watson Institute.
The US Department of State did not respond to a request for comment.
With Mr Trump and Mr Musk, the world's wealthiest man, levelling false accusations that its staff were criminals, dozens of USAid staff have been put on leave, hundreds of internal contractors have been laid off and life-saving programmes around the globe have been left in limbo.
The administration announced on Feb 4 it was going to put on leave all directly hired USAid employees globally
Secretary of State Marco Rubio had said the administration was identifying and designating programmes that would be exempted from the sweeping stop-work orders, which have threatened efforts around the globe to stop the spread of disease, prevent famine and otherwise alleviate poverty.
Implementing partners of USAid are facing financial trouble on the back of stop-work orders from the State Department.
Merging USAid with state
The overhaul will upend the lives of thousands of staff and their families.
The administration's goal is to merge USAid with the State Department led by Mr Rubio, who Mr Trump has made acting USAid administrator. However, it is not clear that he can merge the agencies unless Congress votes to do so, since USAid was created and is funded by laws that remain in place.
USAid employed more than 10,000 people around the world, two-thirds of them outside the US, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS). It managed more than US$40 billion (S$53 billion) in fiscal 2023, the most recent year for which there is complete data.
Sources familiar with events at the agency on Feb 6 said some workers had begun receiving termination notices.
The USAid website said that as of midnight on Feb 7, “all USAid direct hire personnel will be placed on administrative leave globally, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programmes”.
It said essential personnel expected to continue working would be informed by Feb 6 at 3pm.
The agency provided aid to some 130 countries in 2023, many of them shattered by conflict and deeply impoverished. The top recipients were Ukraine, followed by Ethiopia, Jordan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan, according to the CRS report. REUTERS
