U.S. Congressman Scott Perry has alleged that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has been funding terrorist organizations, including Boko Haram. Perry, a Republican representing Pennsylvania, made the claim during the inaugural hearing of the Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency on Thursday, February 14.
During the session, titled “The War on Waste: Stamping Out the Scourge of Improper Payments and Fraud,” Perry asserted that American taxpayer funds were being misused to support extremist groups.
“Who gets some of that money? Does that name ring a bell to anybody in the room? Because your money, your money, $697 million annually, plus the shipments of cash funds in Madrasas, ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, ISIS Khorasan, terrorist training camps. That’s what it’s funding,” Perry said.
He also criticized USAID’s reported $136 million expenditure on building 120 schools in Pakistan, claiming there was “zero evidence” of the schools’ construction.
“USAID spent $840 million in the last 20 years on Pakistan’s education-related programme. It includes $136 million to build 120 schools, of which there is zero evidence that any of them were built. Why would there be any evidence? The Inspector General can’t get in to see them,” Perry alleged.
He further questioned the legitimacy of USAID-funded programs aimed at women’s education in Afghanistan, arguing that such initiatives were unrealistic given the Taliban’s restrictions on women.
“If you think that the programme under Operation Enduring Sentinel entitled Women’s Scholarship Endowment, which receives $60 million annually, or the Young Women Lead, which gets about $5 million annually, is going to women who, by the way, if you read the Inspector General’s report, is telling you that the Taliban does not allow women to speak in public, yet somehow you’re believing, and the American people are supposed to believe, that this money is going for the betterment of the women in Afghanistan. It is not,” Perry stated.
“You are funding terrorism, and it’s coming through USAID. And it’s not just Afghanistan, because Pakistan’s right next door,” he added.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump has previously called for USAID’s closure, accusing it of corruption. In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said the agency was part of a larger effort to dismantle government waste and bureaucracy.
Elon Musk, whom Trump appointed to lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, has also criticized USAID, alleging it engages in rogue operations. Musk described the agency as “a viper’s nest of radical-left Marxists who hate America” and vowed to shut it down. He also claimed that USAID had been involved in “rogue CIA work” and had even “funded bioweapon research, including COVID-19, that killed millions of people.”
Trump emphasized that his administration’s goal was to “dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excessive regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies — essential to the ‘Save America’ movement.”
