Workers load bags of food aid from the U.S. during food loading operations in Quetta back in 2001. USAID has recently initiated a probe into accusations that the Taliban takes its money meant for large development projects, like roads and bridges. (Reuters)
Are US taxpayers funding the Taliban?
USAID probes the possibility that contractors give a cut to the Taliban.
KABUL — The United States Agency for International Development has opened an investigation into allegations that its funds for road and bridge construction in Afghanistan are ending up in the hands of the Taliban, through a protection racket for contractors.
And House Foreign Affairs Committee member, Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.) vowed to hold hearings on the issue in the fall, saying: "The idea that American taxpayer dollars are ending up with the Taliban is a case for grave concern."
U.S. officials confirmed that the preliminary investigation and the proposed hearings were sparked by a GlobalPost special report on the funding of the Taliban last month that uncovered a process that has been an open secret in Afghanistan for years among those in international aid organizations.
The report exposed that the Taliban takes a percentage of the billions of dollars in aid from U.S. and other international coalition members that goes to large organizations and their subcontractors for development projects, in exchange for protection in remote areas controlled by the insurgency.
“We are looking into this. We are always interested in fraud, waste and abuse,” said Dona Dinkler, the chief of staff for congressional affairs at USAID’s Office of Inspector General in Washington, D.C.
But, she added: “It’s a real hard thing to prove. Who is going to survive to testify about that? That is our challenge. But that doesn’t mean we stop trying. We want to get to the bottom of it.”
The USAID probe is underway in tandem with an inquiry by the U.S. House of Representatives' Foreign Affairs Committee, whose members have raised concerns in recent years about fraud and abuse in the $7.5 billion in funds marked for Afghanistan between 2002 and this year.
"It's our intention this fall to hold public hearings on it. We will pursue this with vigor," said committee member Delahunt.
Delahunt said the allegations made in the story reveal a lack of oversight of U.S. government spending in Afghanistan that he described as a legacy of the previous administration in Washington. He said more resources were needed to be brought to routing out this kind of corruption.
USAID’s Inspector General has only one investigator in Afghanistan and two auditors tracking the billions of tax payers’ dollars that go to NGOs in that troubled country.
“They want to know what [we are] going to do about this,” said an official at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, adding that the goal of the probe at this point is to determine how extensive the problem is, and how it can be tracked.
As part of a special report called "Life, Death and the Taliban," GlobalPost traced a web of financial connections between major international contractors and the Taliban in which the insurgents provide protection — largely from themselves — in return for a healthy cut of the proceeds. One source, with direct knowledge of such payments, estimated the Taliban can take upwards of 20 percent from many contracts awarded in unstable areas, which would include about half of the country.
When the money is not paid out, then bridges get blown up, engineers get kidnapped and projects tend to stall, according to sources quoted in the story.
International NGOs operating in Afghanistan are, for the most part, free from the corruption that is mentioned in this article. Attention should be given to the multitude of contractors that are implementing road and bridge and other huge and costly infrastructure projects.
Not at all surprising. See "Afghanistan - What next?"
The facts are always undeniable no doubt but the circumstances make it hard to accept the truth and compels to compromise with the realities on ground.
Hope no further elaboration is needed to realize the mistakes committed on the very first instance. Vital points were not properly assessed particularly the political & military strategies in relation with the personal equation of the heads of the two neighboring countries in addition failure to utilize the utility value of the person having good relation with Taliban.
The President had been intentionally placed in a false position by the outgoing President to have posed as a silent observer at the ousting of the then President of Pakistan because of false reports prepared at the behest of some interested elites of the ruling party and also with the support of the opposition.
The best way out would be to seek help from ex-President General Musharraf and consult him for a honorable solution of the issue without further delay and before the matter escalates further and slips beyond control.
Present Karzai government may not like the proposition. Therefore, the mater has to be kept secret, from both Pakistan and Afghanistan even from the new Afghan government.
Does anybodyelse think it odd that this "reporter" really works for a NGO in Afghanistan that lists USAID on it's website as a donor?
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