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Washington • Rep. Jason Chaffetz spent only five hours in Haiti on Tuesday, but said it was enough time to witness masses of people living under simple tarps in makeshift camps with raw sewage running in streams through the mud.
And it was enough time for the Utah Republican to become convinced that U.S. aid had not appreciably improved their lives since the terrible earthquake that struck the small island in January 2010.
"Our country is so giving in responding to a true humanitarian crisis, and it is embarrassing to get down there and not see more results," Chaffetz said upon his return to Washington. "I worry there are millions of dollars that are unaccounted for, and the progress is slow and depressing."
The quick trip with four other members of Congress came on the heels of visits to Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq, where Chaffetz also took tabs of projects overseen by the United States Agency for International Development, known as USAID.
Chaffetz vowed to hold hearings — in the House subcommittee he leads — on how USAID spends federal aid internationally.
"I worry that USAID has mismanaged the funding," he said, "and I'm worried that USAID has not coordinated a cohesive response."
The agency says it has nearly 200 programs in Haiti worth more than $1.6 billion.
In a statement, Carleene Dei, USAID's mission director there, defended the agency's efforts.
"Evidence of earthquake-relief efforts are apparent in many places in Haiti, especially in camps for displaced Haitians like the one that the delegation visited," she said, citing food for 3.5 million, a sizable boost in clean drinking water and efforts to reduce the outbreak of cholera.
"There is still much work to be done," Dei said, "but this is progress."
Chaffetz and his congressional colleagues visited Guantanamo Bay on Monday, spent the night in the Dominican Republic and then went to Haiti on Tuesday. It was Chaffetz's first trip to the country. The delegation visited a temporary school and a medical clinic set up by USAID, toured a makeshift camp and watched the destruction of a damaged building in a decimated neighborhood.
"It's hard to describe how devastating that earthquake was," Chaffetz said. "It is about as minimal a living standard as I've ever seen."
The second-term Utah congressman acknowledged some U.S. aid paid for food, water and medical care in the days after the quake, but said he was not impressed with the level of improvements in the nation's basic infrastructure since then. He also was highly skeptical of USAID's accounting.
Chaffetz said he asked for more detailed financial data, but added that USAID has provided only limited information.
"They couldn't tell me how much has been appropriated and they could not produce a list of how they spent their money," he said. "People should be able to see what they spent their money on."