Wednesday 12 September 2012

ANA loses papers for $475 million in fuel payments

How strange! All the Afghan National Army documents concerning the financial records for the purchase of petroleum, oil and lubricants for the period October 2006-February 2011 have been shredded, according to John Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. These relate to payments totalling nearly $475 million. Sopko adds: "In addition, CSTC-A could not provide more than half of the documents we requested for our audit period from March 2011 to March 2012. As a result, SIGAR reduced the audit period and could not audit the documentation for more than $4.5 million of selected ANA fuel orders paid during our audit period." The interim report on this scandal can be found here.
In February 2010 the US Army Central Command issued a memorandum instructing its financial managers not to dispose of financial documents related to the conflict in Afghanistan. Presumably the legions of American officers attached to the ANA were aware of this order. Corruption is thriving in Afghanistan, not just on the Afghan side of things.

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