“Congress has appropriated $126 billion for Afghanistan reconstruction since Fiscal Year 2002,” wrote Special Inspector General John F. Sopko in testimony delivered in May to the Senate Subcommittee on Federal Spending Oversight and Emergency Management.
By 2014, he added, inflation-adjusted appropriations for that purpose “had already exceeded the total of U.S. aid committed to the Marshall Plan for rebuilding much of Europe after World War II.”
So much money, spent so fast, inevitably generates many examples of projects poorly or wastefully executed. Afghanistan reconstruction is no exception, as the ongoing work of Sopko’s office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) makes clear. Here are a few of the most head-smackingly absurd.
THE $43 MILLION GAS STATION
ACCORDING TO A 2015 SIGAR study, the U.S.-funded Task Force for Business and Stability Operations (TFBSO) “spent nearly $43 million to construct a compressed natural gas (CNG) auto-mobile filling station in the city of Sheberghan, Afghanistan.” A similar station in Pakistan “costs no more than $500,000 to construct,” making the Afghan counterpart some 86 times as expensive. Yet the Department of Defense (DOD) was “unable to provide an explanation for the high cost of the project or to answer any other questions concerning its planning, implementation, or outcome.”
Those who decided to spend those millions didn’t seem to realize that “Afghanistan lacks the natural gas transmission and local distribution infrastructure necessary to support a viable market for CNG vehicles” or that “the cost of converting a gasoline-powered car to run on CNG may be prohibitive for the average Afghan.”
In summation, the SIGAR study concludes, “it is not clear why TFBSO believed the CNG filling station project should be undertaken....In fact, an economic impact assessment performed at the request of TFBSO found that the CNG filling station project produced no discernable macroeconomic gains and a discounted net loss of $31 million.”
Esta historia es de la edición August/September 2018 de Reason magazine.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición August/September 2018 de Reason magazine.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
Gimme Shelter - The U.S. confronts a growing homelessness problem. Does Miami have the answer?
The U.S. confronts a growing homelessness problem. Does Miami have the answer?
AI Is Coming for Hollywood's Jobs
But so is everyone else.
AI Can Do Paperwork Doctors Hate
With help from AI, doctors can focus on patients.
Antitrust May Smother the Power of AI
Left alone, AI could actually help small firms compete with tech giants.
A Brief, Biased History of the Culture Wars
THE FIRST PAR AGR APH of the book jacket lays it out: “There is a common belief that we live in unprecedented times, that people are too sensitive today, that nobody objected to the actions of actors, comedians, and filmmakers in the past.
FAMILIES NEED A VIBE SHIFT
THE AUTHORS OF FOUR NEW BOOKSWITH 24 KIDS BETWEEN THEM-SAY THE AMERICAN FAMILY NEEDS A COURSE CORRECTION.
"The Past Is There To Teach Us What Can Happen'
Hardcore History's Dan Carlin on hero worship and moral assumptions in the study of the past
Cutting Off Israel
ENDING U.S. AID WOULD GIVE WASHINGTON LESS LEVERAGE IN THE MIDDLE EAST. THAT’S WHY IT’S WORTH DOING.
WHAT CAUSED THE D.C.CRIME WAVE?
GOVERNMENT MISMANAGEMENT, NOT SENTENCING REFORM OR SPARSE SOCIAL SPENDING, DESERVES THE BLAME.
States Turn Their Backs on Criminal Justice Reform
IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE to avoid the “strange bedfellows” cliché when reading about the criminal justice reform movement in the 2010s.
