There's always been something a little fishy about foreign aid, as it is. After all, it's taking taxpayer money and giving it to third parties in some of the most corrupt parts of the world. There's no way all of that money went for what it was supposed to go for, and that's assuming everyone handing out the cash had good intentions.
But it seems one foreign aid official might not have.
Mathieu Zahui, chief financial officer of the African Development Foundation, tried to block DOGE from checking the organization's books and even claimed they wouldn't acknowledge President Donald Trump's appointee to helm the foundation. According to a report from The Daily Wire, Zahui may have had some personal reasons to make that stand:
A foreign aid official who refused the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) access to his agency’s financial records may have had a reason to keep auditors out: he steered illicit contracts to a friend who sent him secret payments, according to a law enforcement affidavit obtained by The Daily Wire.
Mathieu Zahui, chief financial officer of the African Development Foundation, refused to grant DOGE access to its books and told the White House that the agency would not acknowledge President Donald Trump’s appointee as chairman of the board. After a dramatic showdown in March, DOGE physically took over the building with U.S. Marshals, but control of the agency is now the subject of a lawsuit objecting to “swooping in with DOGE staff, demanding access to sensitive information systems” — an objection that reads differently in light of the criminal probe.
For years, workers at the small, USAID-adjacent federal agency focused on Africa have told oversight bodies about allegations of self-dealing, procurement violations, and mysterious offshore bank accounts, many of them involving Zahui. But little was done about it, several told The Daily Wire.
One action that raised eyebrows was Zahui’s insistence on directing both grants and contracts to a company in Kenya called Ganiam Ltd. According to spending records, it was awarded nearly $800,000 in contracts without competition. For example, a one-year, $350,000 contract for “transport, travel, relocation” services was executed in March 2020, when few people were traveling or holding conferences because of coronavirus.
According to a search warrant application uncovered by The Daily Wire, USAID’s inspector general established by August 2024 that the company’s owner had secretly wired money to Zahui’s personal bank account at times that matched up with the federal contracts. To date, the Department of Justice has not charged either man with a crime.
Yeah, nothing shady about that, now is there?
These are, of course, still just allegations, but they're allegations based on some pretty solid evidence that I'll be darned if I can think of a legitimate explanation for other than some kind of criminal kickbacks taking place.
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The big question I have is just how many other examples of this are there that we don't know about? I'd be downright shocked to learn this really is an isolated case.
It does explain an awful lot about the reticence of so many federal bureaucrats to allow DOGE to do its job.
How many of them have made the argument of "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" before? Why don't they hold to that when it's their feet to the fire?
Yet in this case, it's true. This is just an audit to see that taxpayer money was being spent appropriately. It's not an IRS audit that can land you in prison over a mistake. Good-faith errors might get you in some hot water, but the worst you'd face is unemployment.
Unless you did what Zahui is alleged to have done, of course. Then you've got plenty to hide and plenty to fear.
I suspect this is just the tip of the iceberg.
