(CNSNews.com) – The United States has dedicated more than $8 billion to Afghanistan since the U.S. withdrawal, and the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction (SIGAR) told lawmakers on Wednesday that he could not give an assurance that U.S. taxpayer dollars were not going to the Taliban.
“While I agree – and we all agree – Afghanistan faces a dire humanitarian and economic situation, it is critical that our assistance not be diverted by the Taliban,” John Sopko told a House Oversight Committee hearing.
“Unfortunately, as I sit here today, I cannot assure this committee or the American taxpayer we are not currently funding the Taliban,” he said. “Nor can I assure you that the Taliban are not diverting the money we are sending from the intended recipients, which are the poor Afghan people.”
Sopko said – not for the first time – that a lack of cooperation from the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was hampering SIGAR’s efforts to monitor the funds devoted to Afghanistan since the U.S. withdrawal in mid-2021.
The Taliban and other nefarious groups with U.S. taxpayer dollars,” he said in his written testimony submitted to the hearing
“We simply do not know since the Department of State, USAID, the U.N. and other agencies are refusing to give us basic information that we or any other oversight body would need to ensure safe stewardship of tax dollars.”
U.S. funding for Afghanistan was aimed at supporting its people without benefiting the Taliban, Sopko said, but the Taliban was using various methods to divert funds.
“The Taliban generate income from U.S. aid by imposing customs charges on shipments coming into the country and charging taxes and fees directly on NGOs,” he said in the written testimony, referring to non-governmental organizations that work with U.N. agencies to distribute aid to needy Afghans.
If NGOs fail to pay up, they risk having their offices closed or bank accounts frozen.
Sopko told the panel that SIGAR understood from its discussions with the U.N. that the Taliban “isn’t so much stealing the money directly from the U.N. – although they may be doing that, we don’t know for sure – but what they doing is they’re illegally billing or charging the subcontractors for the U.N. or other international organizations, and then getting that money.”
Another problem identified was that the Taliban was informing agencies that they cannot provide assistance to ethnic groups which the Pashtun-dominated fundamentalist militia does not favor, such as the Hazaras.
“We’ve also been told that they are diverting some of the food assistance mainly to the wives, the children, and actually Taliban fighters, instead of going to people that are maybe more needy,” Sopko said.
‘Horrifying’
During the hearing, members on both sides of the aisle criticized the Trump and Biden administrations respectively for decision-making in the latter stages of the 20-year U.S. mission in Afghanistan.
In his closing statement, committee chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) called the fact that Sopko was unable to confirm that U.S. taxpayers were not funding the Taliban “shameful” and “horrifying.”
“The Biden administration is taking money out of the paychecks of American truckers, American teachers, American farmers, American builders and American soldiers and sending it to the same people who shot at those soldiers, who murdered those soldiers until not long ago,” he said.
According to a new SIGAR report released ahead of the hearing, the more than $8 billion provided or otherwise made available to Afghanistan since the withdrawal included:
--$2 billion appropriated for humanitarian assistance, mostly food aid, carried out on the ground by international organizations and NGOs
--$3.5 billion of Afghan central bank reserves authorized by the Biden administration last September for a Switzerland-based “Afghan Fund”
--$2.8 billion obligated by the Defense Department “to transport, house, and feed Afghan allies evacuated from Afghanistan”
When the $3.5 billion “Afghan Fund” initiative was announced, the State Department said the released funds would be “used for the benefit of the people of Afghanistan while keeping them out of the hands of the Taliban and other malign actors.”
“The Taliban are not a part of the Afghan Fund, and robust safeguards have been put in place to prevent the funds from being used for illicit activity,” it said.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Wednesday pushed back at the SIGAR’s allegations about a lack of cooperation from federal agencies, saying the administration has provided updates and information to “numerous” inspectors generals.
https://www.cnsnews.com/article/international/patrick-goodenough/afghanistan-ig-i-cant-assure-us-taxpayer-they-arent
No comments:
Post a Comment