By Heath Druzin
Copyright 2014 Stars and Stripes
KABUL — The Pentagon asked for $60 million in additional funds for reconstruction projects in Afghanistan this year, even though American forces have spent only a fraction of the hundreds of millions of tax dollars allotted already. The top U.S. government watchdog in Afghanistan wants to know why.
An analysis by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction found that over the past six fiscal years only 59 percent of funds appropriated for the Commander’s Emergency Response Program were used.
In Fiscal 2013, the Department of Defense obligated only $43.5 million of $200 million appropriated for the military reconstruction fund. Yet, the DOD requested an additional $60 million for the fund for 2014, but received only half that from Congress.
A letter from the special inspector general, John Sopko, to the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, secretary of the Army and DOD comptroller requests an explanation for the disparity in requests and actual money spent.
Sopko said his office needs the information to prepare its part of a congressionally-mandated “lessons learned report.”
Read the full report
No comments:
Post a Comment