Follow the Money Trail - America’s Phantom Aid in Afghanistan ?
While USA goes Broke 83% of U.S. government aid money for Afghanistan remains in the U.S. or in the pockets of U.S. citizens
by: Matthew J. Nasuti, former U.S. State Department Official and U.S. Air Force Captain Reuters reported on April 23, 2007 that Peter Bergen, a senior fellow at the New American Foundation, had testified before the U.S. Congress that 86% of American Government aid to Afghan
More..istan is “phantom” in that it never reaches the Afghan people. Ann Jones, an American aid worker, in a September 3, 2006, article for the San Francisco Chronicle titled: “How U.S. Dollars Disappear in Afghanistan,” estimated that:
83% of American aid to Afghanistan is “phantom aid.”
The term “Phantom Aid” was coined by the NGO ActionAid in 2005 to describe how international aid is siphoned off by donors before it ever arrives in the recipient country.
Former Afghan Planning Minister Ramazan Bashardost told Dominion reporter Gwalgen Geordie Dent, for her February 26, 2008 article titled: “Canada’s Phantom Menace in Afghanistan” that donor funds received from the West since 2001 have not resulted in any improvement in the lives of the Afghan people.
One of the many forms of “phantom” aid arises due to the insistence of entities such as the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) that it, and not the appropriate Afghan ministry, must directly manage the aid. Once USAID begins a project, it usually assigns the work to one of its pre-selected American contractors instead of seeking the most cost-effective international company. These pre-selected contractors are referred to in the United States as “beltway bandits.” They are given that title because they have their headquarters inside of the Washington, D.C. beltway and because they receive U.S. government contracts due to their political connections. Once these overpriced bandits enter the picture, they use Afghan aid funds directly or indirectly to pay for:
- Executive salaries in the United States,
- Home office expenses in the United States
- Technical advisors who work in the United States
- Unneeded project managers
- Inflated salaries for foreigners to work in Afghanistan
- Prime contractors making a profit on subcontractors
- Subcontractors making a profit on second-tier subcontractors
- USAID subcontractors in Turkey and India
- Supplies and materials purchased in Turkey and India
- Foreign security contractors from Nepal and South Africa
- Luxury homes being rented in Kabul
- Alcohol consumed by foreigners in Kabul
- Brothels in Kabul that cater to foreigners
Much of this money is phantom because it is not expended in Afghanistan for Afghans. Less..
Added: Oct 30 2009 In: leak
Recorded on: Oct 29 2009
By: AnotherLeaker 
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