Watchdog: Afghan work at risk after U.S. pullout
WASHINGTON — An independent watchdog agency warned Congress on Tuesday that the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan will hinder efforts to monitor dozens of U.S.-financed reconstruction projects, from a hydroelectric dam to health clinics, that cost billions of dollars.
U.S. civilian oversight personnel will be able to visit only one-fifth of Afghanistan after 2014, when most U.S. troops are scheduled to leave the country, John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, told a House oversight committee.
The accessible areas mostly are near cities and major military bases, even though most of Afghanistan’s population lives in rural areas.
A lack of effective oversight could jeopardize hard-won gains in Afghan gender equality, health care, education, sanitation and other areas that American officials have touted as signs of progress in the 12 years since the U.S. military invaded Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban, Sopko said.
Despite widespread waste and mismanagement in the U.S.-financed reconstruction effort, U.S. officials plan to shift more responsibility for rebuilding and oversight to Afghan government ministries and contractors. Sopko said the Afghan government’s ability to adequately monitor U.S. investment in infrastructure, social programs and security services remains in question.
“The reconstruction effort is undergoing a massive transition,” Sopko told the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.
Pentagon officials have told Sopko’s office they will only help civilians reach project sites within a halfhour helicopter ride of an “advanced medical facility” in case of accidents or attacks.
Sopko said only projects near the capital Kabul, the northern city of Mazar-eSharif, the southern cities of Kandahar and Lashkar Gah, and the western town of Herat would meet those conditions.
As a result, Sopko said, 72 projects are expected to be outside oversight areas after 2014. They include barracks, training centers and other facilities for Afghan soldiers and police, as well as a major hydroelectric project at Kajaki in southern Helmand province.
At the same time, Kabul still expects to receive $20 billion in U.S. reconstruction funding that Congress has approved but not yet disbursed, according to the special inspector general.
That is in addition to $100 billion that Congress has appropriated for Afghan relief and reconstruction since 2002.
Tribune Newspapers reported in August that the U.S. Agency for International Development plans to spend up to $200 million to pay Afghan contractors to help monitor its relief projects with smartphones and GPS-equipped cameras.
The so-called remote monitoring project, the largest such effort ever undertaken by the agency, would be used in nearly all of its 80 major development projects in Afghanistan, according to a draft proposal.
In a letter to senior Obama administration officials, Sopko questioned that strategy, saying there is no substitute for direct monitoring.
“Evenif these alternative means are used to oversee reconstruction sites, direct oversight of reconstruction programs in much of Afghanistan will become prohibitively hazardous or impossible as U.S. military units are withdrawn, coalition bases are closed and civilian reconstruction offices in the field are closed,” Sopko wrote.
USAID, which has spent more than $15 billion in Afghanistan over the past decade, said it will rely on monitoring tools it has used in other dangerous regions.
“USAID is committed to monitoring and overseeing its projects, and ensuring the accountability of U.S. Government funds,” Larry Sampler, the agency’s acting head of Afghanistan programs, said in a statement.