HuffingtonPost: Huge Salaries With No Accountability

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In an October report, the special inspector general for Afghanistan concluded “that the U.S. government is unable to determine how much money it has given the Afghan government in salary supplements since 2002, or how many recipients are being paid.” Anecdotally, however, it didn’t look good.

For example:

[O]ne senior official in the Afghan President's office received a monthly salary supplement of $5,000 from USAID in addition to his monthly government salary of $2,000 and a monthly $1,400 hospitality allowance. That official kept his $5,000 monthly supplement when he left his position to assume a senior position at a ministry that was not part of the USAID salary support program.

The report found that salary supplements paid to Afghan government employees can be as much as 20 times higher than their civil service salaries.

HuffingtonPost: Extortion and Corruption Along The Supply Chain

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The House Oversight Committee in June issued a massive report entitled "Warlord, Inc. Extortion and Corruption Along the U.S. Supply Chain in Afghanistan". The report culminated a six-month investigation into the Pentagon’s “Host Nation Trucking” (HNT) contract. It concluded that
the $2.16 billion contract “fuels warlordism, extortion, and corruption, and it may be a significant source of funding for insurgents.”

The report’s main points:

• Security for the U.S. Supply Chain Is Principally
Provided by Warlords. (The principal private security subcontractors
are warlords, strongmen, commanders and militia leaders who compete
with the Afghan central government for power and authority.)
• The Highway Warlords Run a Protection Racket. (The contractors and
their trucking subcontractors pay tens of millions of dollars annually
to local warlords across Afghanistan in exchange for “protection.”)
• Protection Payments for Safe Passage Are a Significant Potential
Source of Funding for the Taliban. (The highway warlords who provide
security in turn make protection payments to insurgents to coordinate
safe passage.)
• Unaccountable Supply Chain Security Contractors Fuel Corruption.
(There is widespread corruption by Afghan officials and frequent
government extortion along the road. The largest private security
provider for HNT trucks complained that it had to pay $1,000 to
$10,000 in monthly bribes to nearly every Afghan governor, police
chief, and local military unit whose territory the company passed.)