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Corruption & incompetence cripple reconstruction effort, say aid workers - -

By Clancy Chassay

Chronic mismanagement and profligacy are blighting reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan, international aid officials have warned, wasting up to a third of the $15bn (£10.55bn) in funding already delivered and deepening local resentment towards foreign troops stationed there.

Senior British, US and local aid workers have described a number of problems including bribery, profiteering, poor planning and incompetence. The overall effect has been to cripple the development effort structured under the Bush administration's insistence on an unregulated and profit-driven approach to reconstruction.

"The major donor agencies operate on the mistaken assumption that it's more efficient and profitable to do things through market mechanisms," a senior American contractor working in Afghanistan told the Guardian on condition of anonymity. "The notion of big government is a spectre for American conservatives and this [the reconstruction process] is an American conservative project."

The contractor said the "original plan was to get in, prop up Karzai, kill al-Qaida, privatise all government-owned enterprises and get out. It wasn't a development project, that wasn't a concern. Development was an afterthought.

"The process of directing aid and development resources is completely haphazard. The right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing."

The contractor, who has worked across the governance, security and development sectors of the reconstruction process, also said the lack of tangible development had hampered Nato's effort to win the support of Afghans.

Amid blast barriers, checkpoints and foreign troop patrols, the badly finished schools, crumbling clinics and sinking roads stand as monuments to the shortfalls of reconstruction. There have been notable improvements in education and healthcare, but despite the billions dispersed in aid the majority of Afghans still lack access to safe drinking water and sanitary facilities. The country's child mortality rates remain among the highest in the world, with more than 25% dying before their fifth birthday, according to Unicef.

An Afghan contractor, who has handled reconstruction contracts for some large foreign donors since Nato took over, said he was routinely asked to pay bribes or kickbacks to western construction firms. "If we want a contract from a foreign firm we have to pay a 10% bribe, that's the culture ... [but] our profits are nothing in comparison to the money that is made at the top, by the foreigners," he said.

He also accused some foreign companies of profiteering, describing a school construction project he worked on for one of the largest US firms in Afghanistan. He said nearly 75% of the $260,000 budget was swallowed as the project was subcontracted out, first to an American firm and then to two Afghan companies.

Sayeed Jawed, the chairman of the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief (Acbar), an umbrella organisation for local and international NGOs operating in Afghanistan, made similar allegations about profiteering. "The budgets should not be subcontracted away like this," he said. "Maybe once, but not six times. There should be a limit to the amount of money made. There really are no records of how much money is spent, where it goes and where it came from. There is corruption but there is no way of documenting it."

The Afghan government now says $5bn, a third of all the international aid delivered, cannot be accounted for.

More than two-thirds of all aid bypasses the government in Kabul completely, and according to a recent Acbar report, less than 40% of technical assistance to Afghanistan is coordinated with the government. Some aid officials attribute this to high levels of corruption within the government itself.

Among the greatest drains on the aid budget are the sums paid to foreign consultants. "We have seen massive waste in technical assistance in the form of expatriate consultants," said Matt Waldman, who heads Oxfam's Kabul office and who authored the Acbar report. "Despite the fact that thousands have come and gone with very little impact, the cost of these consultants remains between $200,000 and $300,000 a year [each]." Such a salary equates to about 200 times the amount paid to a local Afghan employee.

More than 40% of aid goes back to donor countries in corporate profits - an estimated $6bn since the start of reconstruction seven years ago. According to Acbar, profit margins for foreign contractors are sometimes as high as 50%. A lack of accountability provides a smokescreen for such excesses, making it difficult to establish how much is being made at each stage of subcontracting.

Aid workers said recent quick-fix solutions handed down by donor nations were usually aimed at domestic audiences and hobbled the process further. They also said a disproportionate amount of money has been spent on military initiatives since foreign forces took control of the country. At present, the US military spends about $100m a day on security in Afghanistan, while the average expenditure on development by all donor countries put together was less than $7m a day.

"In 2007, the US provided some $70m to the agricultural sector and some $7bn to the security sector," said Waldman.

Some measures are now being taken to address such issues. Last year, Congress approved an office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (Sigar) under the auspices of the Pentagon and investigations have been launched into some organisations operating in the country. But Waldman said much more needed to be done.

"Just like in western countries we would expect that major operations of any kind should be subject to scrutiny ... well, we should see the same kind of scrutiny, of analysis, of oversight in Afghanistan."



    
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