Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s humanitarian waiver for foreign aid is a “performative” bit of “lip service,” said former contractors with the U.S. Agency for International Development who worked on programs to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS and Ebola.

Instead of a functioning waiver system, they told The Intercept, the programs are grinding to a halt amid the chaos — putting aid recipients at grave risk.

With USAID staffers forced out on leave and agency contractors laid off, and with scattershot advice from the State Department, organizations outside the U.S. have been left with little idea of how to request new waivers or how to implement those already granted for HIV/AIDS treatment.

Rubio, meanwhile, is placing the blame on aid workers themselves. On Tuesday, he lashed out at the foreign aid partners who have endured days of chaotic and shifting instructions from the U.S., suggesting that they might be “deliberately sabotaging” lifesaving projects “for purposes of making a political point.”

Inside the U.S., a major contractor that helped the government procure vital anti-retroviral drugs said Wednesday that it had yet to receive an explanation of what the waiver meant and has not restarted work.

“You don’t have the staff to oversee it, you don’t have the systems in place to move the products. It’s gone.”

A former USAID contractor who worked as a supply chain adviser on an HIV/AIDS project until their termination last month panned the waiver process.

“It’s beyond lip service at this point, given that you don’t have the staff to oversee it, you don’t have the systems in place to move the products,” said the aid worker, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution. “It’s gone.”

Waiver for What?

Rubio announced the waiver on January 28, a week after President Donald Trump signed an executive order freezing all foreign assistance for a 90-day review.

His announcement of the waiver came at the same time that Elon Musk and his allies were dismantling the agency that oversees much of foreign assistance, USAID.

The “humanitarian waiver” was supposed to ensure that lifesaving and politically popular programs such as President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR — an HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention program launched by George W. Bush in 2003 — would continue.

Time is crucial when it comes to the anti-retroviral drugs that treat and prevent the spread of HIV. It can take just three weeks for viral loads to rebound once patients stop receiving the drugs.

Rubio’s announcement of the waiver process did not amount to an instant revival of PEPFAR, however. The program’s waiver wasn’t granted until February 1, and even the limited waiver has left America’s foreign partners piecing through what they can and cannot do with U.S. dollars and drugs.

HIV clinics in South Africa, where PEPFAR helps provide daily treatment........

© The Intercept