Watchdog: U.S. May Have Spent Taxpayer Dollars On Afghanistan Schools That Didn’t Exist
Though stories of the United States wasting taxpayer dollars to rebuild Afghanistan are common, the federal government always proudly pointed to its successes investing in education there.
But now, it seems, those achievements were likely inflated.
Turns out the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) statistics that student enrollment had jumped from 900,000 in 2002 to 8 million in 2013 were based on figures provided by the Afghan Ministry of Education. And that data might have been made up.
There’s been claims by the new government under Ashraf Ghani, which came to power last fall, that the Karzai administration lied about the number of open schools as a means to get more funding.
The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) demanded an explanation in a June 11 letter to USAID that was embargoed until Thursday.
“The Ministers reported that there are no active schools in insecure parts of the country, and that former officials doctored statistics, embezzled money, and interfered with university entrance exams,” Inspector General John F. Sopko wrote. “These allegations suggest that U.S. and other donors may have paid for schools that students do not attend and for the salaries of teachers who do not teach.”
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