In yet another big win for those who have alleged that American foreign aid programs and the like were dominated by fraud rather than wise stewardship of taxpayer dollars, and thus deserved to be cut by the formerly Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and like efforts, a senior foreign aid official pleaded guilty to serious corruption charges.
That individual is Mathieu Zahui, a 59-year-old resident of Fairfax, Virginia, who was the Director of Financial Management of the United States African Development Foundation (USADF). He was caught accepting illegal gratuities from federal contractors in his role, and then lying to investigators about having done so.
As background, the USADF is an independent U.S. federal agency that was established in 1980 with the mission of working in connection with the infamous U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which has since been shut down by DOGE and Trump, to support economic development in Africa. It primarily aimed to do so through small grants to small enterprises and organizations. Though connected to USAID and USAID’s mission, it operates separately and has a separate budget.
Describing the corruption scheme to which Zahui has pleaded guilty in a press release, the DOJ said, “According to court documents, Mathieu Zahui, 59, of Fairfax, Virginia, who referred to himself as the ‘CFO’ of USADF, arranged for USADF to pay USADF vendors and contractors through a Kenya-based company, Company-1. Company-1 was owned by a government contractor (CC-1), whom Zahui had known for over 20 years. Between June 2020 and December 2023, Zahui arranged for Company-1 to act as a pass-through for USADF’s payments to certain vendors, rather than have USADF pay the vendors directly.”
Adding to that by giving an example of how the scheme worked, it noted, “For example, when USADF needed to pay a past-due debt to a staffing vendor, Zahui directed the vendor to invoice Company-1 instead of USADF. Company-1 then invoiced USADF for the vendor’s past-due amount, but added a mark-up of over $20,000 to the amount owed. Zahui approved Company-1’s invoice even though he knew that Company-1 had provided no services related to the vendor’s work.”
Continuing, the statement noted how Zahui helped the contractor hide the fact that it was stealing from the government, noting, “Zahui approved pass-through invoices for Company-1 that included mark-ups ranging from 17% to 66% above the amounts owed to the vendors, even when Company-1 did no work justifying the mark-up.”
Further, according to the statement, Zahui let the contractor steal $134,886.34 from taxpayers in illegal markups, out of $617,625.49 it billed for real and fraudulent services. In return for that, Zahui reportedly “accepted $12,000 in cash payments directly”, and didn’t disclose the conduct or the illegal gratuity to the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, which oversees USADF spending with external parties.
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Zahui and the contractor were caught, however, and he was pressed on it. Noting that he lied about the illegal payoff, the DOJ noted, “When interviewed by federal law enforcement agents in 2024, Zahui was asked about his relationship with CC-1 and falsely stated that he had never received any benefits from CC-1 when, in fact, he had received $12,000 in cash payments from CC-1.”
Then, noting that he is pleading guilty and faces years in prison for his crimes, the DOJ provided, “Zahui agreed to plead guilty to one count of accepting gratuities from CC-1 and one count of making a false statement to a federal law enforcement officer. He faces a maximum penalty of two years in prison for the gratuities charge and five years in prison for the false statement charge.”
Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division commented on the situation by saying, “Corruption by senior officials representing the United States cheats American taxpayers and rigs the system against honest work. This plea agreement demonstrates the Criminal Division’s pursuit of bad actors who engage in waste and abuse in government contracting.”
Watch USAID corruption and illegal behavior get exposed here: