'Billion dollars worth of US aid diverted to Taliban'

About one billion dollar worth of US aid has wound up in the hands of the Taliban and other insurgency groups, war analysts and government auditors say. 

Sub-contractors have reportedly diverted the funds from programmes meant to stabilise Afghanistan.

In fact, the auditors say, graft has gotten so bad that the US government estimates that only about 10% of the aid budget actually reaches the people in Afghanistan.

“Right now corruption is more important than the politics. I have been there (Afghanistan) seven times in the last year and the estimates I have been told are that 20 to 40% of the aid funding goes to corruption,” Michael Thibault, co-chairman of Congress’ independent and bipartisan wartime commission on contracting, said.

Investigations by the US senate and the inspector general of the US agency for international development (USAID) have focused on how guard services that surround US bases have been compromised by the Taliban. This has jeopardised the safety of American troops.

One company — DAI of Bethesda, Maryland — involved in rehabilitation, was forced to pay five million dollars in protection money to Taliban-connected groups. 

But those familiar with the country say the scale of the corruption is far wider.

“Virtually every transaction in Afghanistan involves some degree of payoff,” says Christine Fair of Georgetown University. Fair explained that the practice has become so deeply ingrained in the country that it is not even considered as corruption.