Two reports, similar story
In 2007, President George W. Bush announced the Mérida Initiative, a 3-year, $1.4 billion program, most of it military and police assistance, to help Mexico and Central America fight organized crime and narcotrafficking. Congress first appropriated funds to the Mérida Initiative in the Fiscal Year 2008 supplemental appropriations bill, and have since appropriated nearly $1.3 billion for the initiative. The U.S. Government Accountability Office, a branch of the U.S. Congress that audits and evaluates government policies, released a report (pdf) Thursday finding that as of September 30, 2009, only 2% of funds ($26 million) allocated to the Mérida Initiative since 2008 had been actually delivered. The report attributes the delay to three factors: "(1) statutory conditions on the funds, (2) challenges in fulfilling administrative procedures, and (3) the need to enhance institutional capacity on the part of both recipient countries and the United States to implement the assistance." Interestingly, in 2003, the GAO released a similar report on the status of assistance appropriated to Colombia under Plan Colombia from 2000-2003 (pdf). The report only covered the allocation of assistance appropriated in 2000 to the Colombian Army, much of which had been delivered by June 2003, though it highlights similar financial and management challenges. The most clear comparison between the two reports is the delay in delivering the helicopters provided under the two U.S.-funded programs. In the report on the Mérida Initiative, the time it takes for administrative procedures to be carried out, especially for the delivery of helicopters, was an important factor in slow delivery of Mérida assistance. The report cites one State Department official, who explains that "it typically takes between 3 to 6 months to negotiate and sign a contract for the provision of aircraft." Once the contract has been signed, it then takes another 12 to 18 months for a helicopter to be built, and 18-24 months for an airplane. Therefore, it would take anywhere from 15-24 months for a helicopter to be delivered. The report does say that the State Department expects five Bell helicopters to be delivered to Mexico sometime this month as a result of an attempt to expedite the process. Though it is noted that "the time lapse between funds being appropriated and a deliverable on the ground will still be about 18 months." The earlier report on Plan Colombia noted an even longer lag in the delivery of helicopters. President Bill Clinton signed the Plan Colombia appropriation into law in July 2000, yet the first Black Hawk helicopters were delivered between July and December 2001 and not operational until November 2002 "because of a shortage of fully qualified Colombian Army pilots." 25 UH-II helicopters were also to be delivered between November 2001 and June 2002, however, "they were delivered between March and November 2002 instead because the Colombian military was considering whether to use a more powerful engine in the helicopters than the one usually installed." Those helicopters were not operational until June 2003, again due to a lack of qualified pilots. The Colombian Army did not have the operational helicopters promised under Plan Colombia for almost two and a half years - a long delay that makes the 18 month lag in delivering helicopters to Mexico look like an improvement, though the problem with training could arise as it did in Colombia. Both reports also mentioned human rights conditions and a lack of institutional capacity as factors in the delay of aid delivery under these two prominent counternarcotics initiatives.