Afghan police
I received the following email communication last night from the office of the Director, SUGAR (Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction) with more disturbing news about US taxpayer funds being wasted in Afghanistan through fraud, waste, corruption and abuse.
It read as follows:
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE
Good morning Mr. Tilford,
I trust this message find you well.
Today, SIGAR released a series of letters raising concerns over the United Nations Development Program’s oversight of the Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan (LOTFA), which administers payments to the Afghan National Police. The United States and other donor nations have contributed roughly $3.17 billion to the trust fund since 2002.
In his letters, Special Inspector General John F. Sopko writes of a string of irregularities — including tens of millions of dollars in unsupported charges made by the Afghan Ministry of the Interior against LOTFA — including $23.8 million in LOTFA funds diverted as a result of a “pension deduction” levied by the ministry.
In one letter, sent recently to American military commanders in Afghanistan, Mr. Sopko wrote that UNDP officials are not proactively addressing many of the problems plaguing LOTFA, including the dubious deductions taken from ANP salaries, evidence of fraud, and other concerns raised by donors regarding LOTFA’s integrity.
In another set of letters, Mr. Sopko wrote to UNDP Administrator Helen Clark to express his concern over UNDP’s failure to provide detailed information concerning steps it is taking to ensure that LOTFA funds are not used to pay artificially high ANP salaries and “ghost employees.” Mr. Sopko’s letter suggests that UNDP has a duty to oversee how LOTFA funds are expended, but that the agency has been “disturbingly ambiguous” in the face of SIGAR inquiries.
Below are links for the aforementioned letters. Please take a look.
Following are links to SIGAR’s letters to the military and UNDP, as well as UNDP’s most-recent response:
http://www.sigar.mil/pdf/special%20projects/SIGAR-14-99-SP.pdf
http://www.sigar.mil/pdf/special%20projects/SIGAR-14-98-SP.pdf
http://www.sigar.mil/pdf/special%20projects/14-09-29ltr.pdf
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.
Regards,
Phil LaVelle
Philip J. LaVelle
Director of Public Affairs
Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction
(703) 545-XXXX (Office)
(571) XXX-XXXX (Blackberry)
Website: http://www.sigar.mil/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/sigarhq