WASHINGTON — Individual tribes should be allowed to assume control of Indian affairs programs administered by the government as a way to end "massive fraud, corruption and mismanagement" by the federal officials who oversee them, a Senate panel recommended Friday.
The report, the product of a two-year investigation by the investigations unit of the Select Committee on Indian Affairs, disclosed widespread abuses by the federal agencies assigned to oversee existing programs.
The panel reported that federal officials knew of possible oil theft from Indians but refused to stop it, hired teachers at reservation schools despite known records of sexual abuse of children and failed to heed warnings that minority contracting programs were dominated by fraudulent shell companies.
Committee investigators also documented kickbacks and other illegal financial dealings by some tribal officials.
"Not only do American Indians, but the American taxpayer as well, suffer from this extreme waste," said Sen. Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.), the investigations unit chairman. "Year after year, all American taxpayers must foot the bill for a negligent and unresponsive bureaucracy from a limited federal budget."
The report, which advocates a "New Federalism for American Indians," proposes that individual tribes negotiate agreements with the President to establish self-governing bodies that will function "in the same sense as state governments."
For those tribes that reach such agreements, the government would provide tribal officials with an annual entitlement grant equal to the amount that the tribe would have received through existing federal programs.
The grants would be used by the tribal governments to provide services for their members. In return, the tribes would be accountable to a constitution ratified by a majority of all adult tribal members.
Officials at the Interior Department, which supervises the Bureau of Indian Affairs and administers the federal government's $3.3-billion Indian affairs budget, said they had not yet read the report. But they praised the committee for its work and noted that agency officials already are working with Indian tribes to achieve self government.
"The report reflects a trend currently growing stronger within tribal communities--the assumption of greater self-determination by tribal governments," said Eddie Frank Brown, assistant Interior secretary for Indian affairs.
