U.S Taxpayer Money Pumped into George Soros Group, Used to Bribe Foreign Politicians
Report exposes scheme to misuse tax dollars in Azerbaijan
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Details of a shady scheme to bribe foreign politicians have emerged that involves pumping millions of dollars of American taxpayers' money into a George Soros-founded group, according to an explosive new report.
Federal funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has been plowed into a murky Soros-led project in Azerbaijan.
The effort is the latest in a number of serious corruption cases related to USAID’s operations in Azerbaijan.
The bombshell finding was unearthed by renowned investigative journalist Matt Palumbo.
According to Palumbo's inside source in Azerbaijan, the money was pumped through a multimillion-dollar project called Socio-Economic Development Activity (SEDA) Project.
SEDA was implemented by a Soros-founded NGO, the “East West Management Institute.”
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Palumbo's smoking gun report on his findings reveals that the budget of this project was set at $14.4 million with equal contributions from the U.S. Government and the Government of Azerbaijan (GoAj).
According to the agreement, the parties had to jointly select the organization that would implement this project.
USAID independently identified the “East-West Management Institute” (EWMI) established by Soros back in 1988 as the executor of the SEDA project without any consultation with the Azerbaijani government.
The project was supposed to officially start in 2010.
However, because of the irritation of the Government beginning of its implementation, it was delayed until November 2011.
Delina Fico, a scandalous Soros protégé, has been appointed by the EWMI as a coordinator for this project.
Considering that USAID transferred the project to a Soros-affiliated group, the Azerbaijani government refused to register both the project and the EWMI, so EWMI was operating illegally.
The government of Azerbaijan was outraged over efforts by the Obama-Biden administration to interfere in the former Soviet nation's presidential election in 2013.
As a result, Azerbaijan decided to expel all U.S. organizations from the country by end of 2014.
The ban includes Soros’ Open Society Institute–Assistance Foundation, among others.
In 2013, EWMI, through USAID assistance, established contact with Azay Guliyev - Member of the Azerbaijani Parliament and at the same time head of Azerbaijani State Agency - on support to NGOs, to feel the process.
The organization offered Guliyev “compromises” (as Delina Fico put it) to keep EWMI in Azerbaijan.
Contacts with Azay Guliyev were facilitated by a federal USAID official that was expelled from Russia in September 2012: Ronald Glass.
To guarantee continuity of Soros-backed EWMI in Azerbaijan, Ronald Glass first created contacts with the head of the Social-Political Department of the Presidential Administration of Azerbaijan, Mr. Ali Hassanov (dismissed from his position in 2019).
For that purpose, Glass used resources of the U.S. Embassy in Azerbaijan.
After long consultations, EWMI agreed to allocate $610,000 of taxpayer money to a local NGO called “Social Progress”.
Social Progress is unofficially owned by Azay Guliyev (such NGOs are Called GONGO- Government Operated NGO).
Moreover, within the U.S. taxpayer-funded budget, USAID procured a luxury SUV for Azay Guliyev that was serving his personal needs.
EWMI also hired one of Azay Guliyev's staff members as a project coordinator, who was getting a $1,200 monthly salary from EWMI while working both as a government employee and EWMI staff member, which is against USAID rules and procedures.
The agreements with this NGO covered the period from 2014 through 2016.
Resources allocated to this NGO were misused and misappropriated by Azay Guliyev.
For instance, during one of the events organized by “Social Progress” under USAID funding, EWMI agreed to cover $4,000 for Azay Guliyev’s use of a minibar - all paid for by hardworking Americans.
Azay Guliyev also used EWMI to get constituency support during the Azerbaijani parliamentary elections in 2015.
He pushed USAID to implement through EWMI seven projects totaling $300,000 in the City of Shirvan from where he was nominated.
Local media clearly presented those projects as Azay Guliyev initiatives.
There is also information that all 7 projects were budgeted within the state budget of Azerbaijan for that region as well, which is a clear example of double billing.
So this means that Azay Guliyev not only benefited from USAID taxpayers' money for his election campaign but also might benefit from "misappropriating funds" allocated from the state budget for implementing projects that were already implemented by USAİD.
It should be noted that USAID engagement to political processes in the country of operation is against USAID rules and regulations.
Moreover, according to paragraph 2.4 of the Azerbaijani “Law on NGOs”:
“… NGOs are not allowed to provide financial or any other aid to political parties.”
So USAID clearly violated the law by interfering with political processes in Azerbaijan.
Additionally, Azay Guliyev uses USAID to please his personal friends.
For instance, he pushed USAID to implement, through EWMI, two income-generating projects in the city of Ganja.
The projects were later given to the possession of the former mayor of Ganja - the best friend of Azay Guliyev.
However, corruption connections between Azay Guliyev and EWMI didn’t end there.
In January 2020, Albania has taken Chairmanship at OCSE.
The Albanian prime minister then became a chair.
During Edi Rama's Chairmanship at OSCE, Azay Guliyev, being Azerbaijani representative at OSCE, was appointed as a coordinator to monitor Parliamentary Elections in Albania in 2021.
Albanian parliamentary elections in Albania were clearly rigged by Edi Rama.
However, Azay Guliyev, as payback for above, stated on behalf of OSCE that elections went in a democratic way.
Immediately after the completion of elections in Albania, USAID announced a new multimillion project in Azerbaijan called the “Social Engagement Support” (SES) project, for which Azay Guliyev's agency was declared the main beneficiary, and the project has already been granted to EWMI.
That means that Soros will again use the same chain of corruption that has already been tested, to misappropriate U.S. taxpayers' money and keep a presence in Azerbaijan.
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The Bilateral Memorandum between the two governments expired in 2016.
However, USAID allocated an additional $8 million in federal tax dollars to maintain EWMI in Azerbaijan, thus bringing the total budget of the projects to a total of approximately $22 million.
Although it was initially planned to implement 162 community development projects within the first round of the project with 14 million USD, EWMI implemented only 114.
Given that the average cost of each project is $20,000, we are talking about roughly $960,000 “disappearing.”
In addition, SEDA had to provide at least $ 5,000 in grants for “civic participation” projects in 91 villages, of which the EWMI issued only 6 grants.
So that’s another $425,000 in “income” from an unimplemented 85 projects.
According to the cooperative agreement between USAID and EWMI, EWMI undertook a commitment to contribute to the implementation of the program in a sum not less than $1,459,326.
However, EWMI was covering its contribution to the project by collecting 25% of project costs from poor villagers.
So here is another $1.5 million misappropriated.
Thus, as a result of all the frauds of the EWMI, the organization misappropriated a total of about $ 10.5 million for a project worth $22 million (included NICRA)- almost 50% of the funds allocated.
Matt Palumbo has documented a series of shady schemes, involving George Soros and his global networks, in his new book of damning exposés: "Man Behind the Curtain: Inside the Secret Network of George Soros"
