State Department Failing to Track $44Bln in US Economic Aid to Ukraine - GAO Report

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The US Department of State is not fulfilling its mandate of coordinating and monitoring more than $44 billion in US economic and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report on Thursday.

"State doesn't have a systematic, comprehensive approach to specifically track this funding," the GAO said. "We recommended that State better track funding related to the Ukraine crisis."

The GAO found that the State Department was not using a systematic approach to categorize and separately track the status of foreign assistance specifically in response to the crisis in Ukraine, the report said. Consequently, the department faced challenges in providing the status of this foreign assistance, it noted.

"Without such separate tracking, State cannot provide timely information on the status of foreign assistance related to the Ukraine crisis that can be used to understand the status of assistance and to inform decisions about future funding," the GAO said.

Over the past two years, four US agencies have allocated $44.1 billion from supplemental funding and other funds to address the economic and humanitarian needs of people affected by the Ukraine crisis, the GAO noted.