Rajiv Shah
U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Rajiv Shah, who last week announced a new agency development lab involving agriculture, came under scrutiny Tuesday on Capitol Hill for the agency's program to encourage democratization in Cuba with a secret Twitter program and other agency practices.

At the same time, The New York Times highlighted USAID’s shift from the use of contractors to reliance on nongovernmental organizations and partnerships with major corporations while The Economic Times reported that he is one of the candidates under consideration to be U.S. ambassador to India.

Senate Appropriations State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Subcommittee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., noted at a hearing that USAID had engaged in the Twitter program while an American contractor, Alan Gross, remains in a Cuban prison for his role in another Cuban program that was “dumb in its conception.”

Leahy expressed concern that these activities lead to worldwide charges that USAID is a spy agency. Shah defended the Cuba program as part of its congressional mandate to improve communications supporting civil society in developing countries and that the State Department is in charge of the Gross case.

Shah also said that the Twitter program was developed before he became administrator and that he did not know “specifically” who was initially in charge of it.

Shah also appeared before the House Appropriations State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Subcommittee.

In a blog post on the Cuba issue, Shah noted that because “USAID works in places where we are not always welcome ... we must take certain precautions and maintain a discreet profile. But discreet does not equal covert.”

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