Focus on recent House- WASHINGTON |”.
ence fight over auditing of Inter-American Development Bank funds. Issue at stake was whether contributor nations have a right to know where, when and how well their money is being spent on IDB-subsidized projects. Sounds reasonable enough. But by the time the lobby was finished making its case, through the New York Times and Senator Fulbright, Selden’s insistence on auditing was made to appear a kind of fiscal gunboat diplomacy. The controversy opened last fall when the Alabama congressman, who is chairman of the House Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs, traveled through Latin America on an inspection tour of United States aid- financed projects. Disturbed over what he viewed at some project sites, Selden asked IDB fund administrators in the area for a breakdown of loan expenditures but was refused on grounds that nothing in the loan contract required such an accounting. Back in Washington Selden took the matter up with IDB headquarters, but was informed by Latin American officials that the request for an audit was a reflection on the “integrity” of borrower ecuntries. At that point, Selden began drafting an IDB. Funding Bill amendment. His aim: to require that the U.S. representative on the Bank’s Board of Directors insist on a comprehensive audit of loan funding expendi- tures, to be made available to all member nations. When the Selden Amendment was approved by the House the IDB’s operatives, with the help of House conferee William Widnall (R., N.J.), succeeded in getting the amendment eliminated from the House-Senate conference report. Enter now the State Department with a request that Selden drop his insistence on the amendment so that the conference bill could be signed by the President at up- coming ceremonies with Latin Dignitaries. Selden refused, dug in, and took the fight to the House floor where he asked his colleagues to vote down any IDB bill without the loan audit provision. The House overwhelmingly backed the Subcommittee chairman and the Senate then agreed to the amendment. A slur, said the Times, on the IDB’s integrity. Nevertheless Selden now intends to press for similar amendments requiring comprehensive audit- ing of U.S. development loan programs in other areas of the world. @
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