GAO Charges the USDA With Mismanaging Export Program

WASHINGTON — The Agriculture Department is mismanaging a multimillion-dollar program to promote exports of U.S. commodities, according to a congressional report released Tuesday.

The report from the General Accounting Office, the congressional investigating agency, said the department’s Targeted Export Assistance program was spending money to promote sales of American agricultural commodities in foreign countries without adequate controls or records.

The TEA program has a $110-million budget this year, and the department wants to increase that to $325 million in 1989.

“Agriculture is implementing TEA with insufficient accountability and management controls,” the GAO report said. It said funding allocations were not clearly documented and there were no guidelines for evaluating projects.

Rep. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat who requested the report, said he would fight the funding increase for TEA when the House considers the Agriculture Department budget in a few weeks.

“Companies and associations have received money without anyone figuring out who needs it most or even evaluating how well the money is being used,” Schumer said in a statement.

GAO officials said it was difficult to determine whether the money used for foreign advertisements of various farm products, such as Dole pineapples and Sunkist oranges, was helping to reduce the U.S. trade deficit as intended.

“If there is a market for these products, companies should be willing to advertise for themselves,” Schumer said.