Report: Afghans hampering US banking program
WASHINGTON (AP) — Afghan officials are thwarting U.S. efforts to protect American aid from being stolen or diverted to Taliban insurgents, a new report said Wednesday, specifically naming President Hamid Karzai as part of the problem.
U.S. government agencies in Kabul also came in for criticism for not working closely enough with each other to track U.S. cash flowing to Afghanistan.
Amid a growing financial scandal, and after billions in aid have been sent to his country, Karzai has banned U.S. Treasury officials who were working as advisers at the central bank, according to the report from the top U.S. auditor for reconstruction in the war-ravaged nation.
The Treasury advisers will not return because working conditions at the bank have become too hostile, it said.
Raising a new alarm over a national banking scandal that's left Afghanistan in financial crisis, the report cites Karzai's move as one of a number of ways in which his government fails to cooperate with costly international efforts to improve the country's financial sector.
"The United States has poured billions of aid dollars into a country plagued by corruption, insurgency and the narcotics trade," acting Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction Herbert Richardson said in a statement accompanying his report. "It is essential that we use all tools available to ensure that U.S. dollars are protected from fraud and diversion to the insurgency."
Among his recommendations is that Afghan banks and the U.S. should record the serial numbers of the huge bundles of cash that have been flowing into the country as part of a $70 billion American effort since 2002 to improve security and development there.
A spokesman for Karzai referred comment to the central bank.
Emal Ashor, a spokesman for the central bank, said he was not aware of any decision by Karzai to unilaterally ban all U.S. advisers from the bank.
Efforts to track and protect U.S. tax dollars and other international aid are entangled in a web of Afghan banking scandals that have been fast developing in recent weeks:
—The former head of the central bank, Abdul Qadir Fitrat, fled late last month to the U.S. amid allegations of failing to act on warnings about widespread corruption at the nation's largest private lender, Kabul Bank. He said he left after receiving death threats and that he was being made a scapegoat while the government refused to charge politically connected individuals.
Foreign Aid Scandals - News
Efforts to track and protect US tax dollars and other international aid are entangled in a web of Afghan banking scandals that have been fast developing in recent weeks: —The former head of the central bank, Abdul Qadir Fitrat, fled late last month to
The meandering and generally inconclusive televised probes are picked up by TV and other media on the lookout for scandals and then projected to the watching world, including foreign investors. To make matters worse, major contracts already signed and
Self-interest helped drive the agreement because the industry will not only get speedier approvals of new products as part of the deal but also may avoid scandals involving tainted medicines, which tend to hurt confidence in the entire industry.
And that should extend to wars, to foreign involvement, to programs. I don't think anything should be off the table. 4. Sanford remains indignant about many aspects of his scandal's fallout. Your campaign paid $76000 in fines to settle charges of
With foreign troops now starting to go home and the West focused on a final deadline of 2014 to withdraw all combat forces, experts say that aid is also likely to dwindle. Coffers have already been hit by a nearly $1 billion banking scandal involving
PRI: Public Radio International - Aid to British PM David Cameron ...
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