When Obama Threatens, The World Laughs. Kiev To Get New Parking Meters In Response To Putin's Seizure. Is He Really This Stupid Or Something Else?

OBAMA RESPONDS TO RUSSIAN AGGRESSION WITH ... METER MAIDS

Set to modernize Ukraine capital's 'parking infrastructure'

 STEVE PEACOCK 

image: http://www.wnd.com/files/2015/01/Meters32.jpg

President Obama says he is “deeply concerned” about escalated aggression by Russian-backed separatists and has pledged to “raise the costs” for Moscow’s annexation of territory in Ukraine.

One of the costs that Obama intends to impose upon Russians and Ukrainians alike will be the cost of parking a car in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev.

Obama, through the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, has developed a plan to help modernize the Ukrainian capital’s municipal parking infrastructure.

Currently the agency says, it is “burdened by outdated payment infrastructure, non-compliant drivers, unauthorized parking services and national and city-level legislation that hampers the enforcement of parking violations.”

U.S. taxpayers will help correct the inefficient system by subsidizing a contractor that will visit Ukraine for 84 days to “generate options to make reforms to the municipal parking situation so that the city can administer it more efficiently and cost-effectively,” according to planning documents WND located via database research.

Although the official parking authority, KievParkService, owns more than 18,000 lot- and curb-side parking spaces – which are operated by 350 parking attendants and 73 administrators – the parking bureaucracy by a large measure annually fails to meet its projected collection of fees and fines.

USAID acknowledges that part of the problem is corruption, as the parking system largely relies on cash transactions. Additional obstacles stem from a “shadow economy” of competing and often illegal parking-lot owners who operate with impunity in the face of lax enforcement.

“Kiev city cannot tow or boot cars in parking violation,” the agency says. “Ticketing limits and procedures are ill-defined.”

Kiev officials last year approached the Obama administration in search of help to modernize this system. Obama through USAID this month agreed to step in to correct the problem but did not disclose the estimated cost.

Obama on Sunday told reporters in New Delhi, India, that the U.S. will continue to use a combination of “economic pressure” and “diplomatic isolation” against Russia, while “making sure that we’re continuing to provide the support that Ukraine needs to sustain its economy during this transition period.”

Although a U.S. military option is not a consideration, the administration will continue to help the Ukrainian military “with basic supplies and equipment, as well as the continuing training and exercises that have been taking place between NATO and Ukraine for quite some time.”

Recent global aid

Other projects USAID recently launched around the globe include the Indonesia Sustainable Ecosystem Advanced, or SEA, project, a five-year, potentially $33 million endeavor.

The agency will hire a contractor to help strengthen the ability of the Indonesian Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries plus local governments “to promote conservation and sustainable fishing” across the world’s most populous Muslim nation.

Middle East senior advisers are being recruited by USAID to help the agency plan and administer projects dealing with democracy, peace, governance and security, or DPGS, in response to the “Arab Awakening.”

The private contractors selected for the positions will support various USAID missions and U.S. embassies in the region while also “leading analytical DGPS research agenda and pilot projects for the Middle East.”

This personal services contractor slot, which requires a Top Secret clearance, pays in the $107,325 to $139,523 range. USAID said it may create two of these positions at its discretion.

The U.S. Trade & Development Agency, or USTDA, has agreed to pay for a feasibility study costing $503,000 that could lead to the strengthening of Hama Holding Investment Company/Hama for Food Industries, or Hama, an Egyptian “export-oriented citrus fruit processor,” as USTDA describes it.

Due to Hama’s increased agricultural production, the company “seeks to enhance its postharvest processing capacity and capabilities,” which, over five years, will enhance its export capabilities by creating “additional processing lines, cold storage capacities and new juicing and corrugated carton operations.”

The Florida Citrus Commission did not respond to a request for comment. WND inquired whether the group thinks this U.S.-funded modernization-support initiative is a wise or even permissible investment of U.S. taxpayer dollars, particularly in light of recent struggles of the U.S. citrus industry.

The question was posed to the commission in the context of Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs Appropriations legislation, which restricts U.S. foreign assistance from being used to provide “direct assistance for establishing or expanding production of any commodity for export by any country other than the United States.”

The restriction applies, according to the law, “if the commodity is likely to be in surplus on world markets at the time the resulting productive capacity is expected to become operative and if the assistance will cause substantial injury to United States producers of the same, similar, or competing commodity.”

USTDA separately offered a $573,215 grant to OC-SENI, a nonprofit group in the Dominican Republic composed of electrical generation and distribution companies and the national transmission company.

The technical assistance grant, which would be paid to a U.S. contractor on behalf of OC-SENI, will help evaluate the level of new smart grid and other technology upgrades that this Caribbean nation needs and will also “assess how best to integrate them into the national grid.”

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