US Spent $43 Million on Afghanistan Gas Station

[Deleted]

www.cnbc.com/2015/11/02/us-spent-43-million-on-afghanistan-gas-station-watchdog-report.html

Nearly $43 million of U.S. taxpayers' money was spent on building a gas station in Afghanistan — 140 times more than it should have cost, according to a government watchdog.

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) also said that one of the most "troubling" issues is how the Department of Defense was unable or unwilling to explain why the "ill-conceived" project was so expensive.

"Even considering security costs associated with construction and operation in Afghanistan, this level of expenditure appears gratuitous and extreme," SIGAR said in a report issued Monday.

The agency's top official went further.
"It's an outrageous waste of money that raises suspicions that there is something more there than just stupidity," John Sopko, the special inspector general, told NBC News. "There may be fraud. There may be corruption. But I cannot currently find out more about this because of the lack of cooperation."

Despite having vast natural gas reserves, Afghanistan is heavily reliant on importing petroleum products. The Downstream Gas Utilization project — overseen by the Task Force for Stability and Business Operations (TFBSO) — was aimed at changing that.

The mission involved building and operating Afghanistan's first compressed natural gas filling station in the city of Sheberghan and helping develop the commercial market for domestic natural gas.

The problem was, according to SIGAR, is that there was "no indication" the Task Force studied the viability of the project — or considered the significant obstacles it faced — before construction began.

A feasibility study "might have noted" that Afghanistan lacks the distribution infrastructure to make such a market viable — and that converting cars from gasoline to CNG would be cost-prohibitive for most Afghans, SIGAR said.

Despite all of that, a contract for just under $3 million was awarded to a company called Central Asian Engineering in 2011. According to SIGAR, an economic impact assessment found the task force spent well beyond that —$42,718,730 — between 2011 and 2014 to fund the station's construction and supervise its initial operation.

A CNG filling station "would have cost no more than $500,000 in neighboring Pakistan," the report noted, calculating the "exorbitant cost to U.S. taxpayers" at 140 times higher than it should have been.

Sopko told NBC News it appeared that "nobody was minding the store."
"This is one of the worst examples of poor planning and just sheer stupidity," Sopko told NBC News. "It's outrageous."
He called the cost "indicative of a real serious mismanagement" but said perhaps the "more serious" issue was how the Department of Defense had failed to offer documentation or records on the project.

"I'm suspicious when I see something that cost 140 times more than it did and I find people trying to withhold or not cooperate with me," Sopko said. "It raises my suspicions."
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Congress appropriated more than $820 million for the TFBSO between 2010 and 2014 for projects to support economic development, and SIGAR has been conducting a broader review of its activities.

The SIGAR report said a lack of cooperation from the Pentagon had "hindered" its review — an allegation flatly rejected by Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Brian McKeon.

McKeon said the Department of Defense was not trying to restrict access but rather "quite the opposite."
"We're quite ready, willing and able to provide access to these records and we've made that plain to Mr. Sopko's office," he told NBC News. "We have a mandate under the law to provide access to documents and that's what we're doing."

McKeon acknowledged that the $43-million price tag sounds like something "wasn't done properly" but told NBC News he couldn't speak to the details because the project "came well before" he took up his role in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

"On the face of it that sounds like something might not have been done most efficiently but I don't have the business expertise or knowledge on this project to tell you that it was done right or wrong," he said. "Sopko — if he wants to find out more about whether the project was properly done — he can access the materials that we are making available to him."

According to SIGAR, the Department of Defense responded to initial requests for information with a letter saying that it no longer had the "personnel expertise" to address Sopko's queries because the task force was closed down in March 2015. A copy of that letter, from McKeon, was included in the report.

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"They're saying they can't find anybody who knows anybody about this billion-dollar program? I've never encountered anything like this," Sopko said. "It's pixie dust. It's sort of like — poof! The program disappeared and with it all recollection and memory."

While Sopko told NBC News he was not alleging obstruction, he called the justification "unreasonable" and "incomprehensible" — especially given that the task force was shut down months, not years, ago.

"This was a horribly run, horribly managed program and it reported to the Secretary of Defense… But just because its embarrassing doesn't mean you make the program disappear."
In response to a draft of the SIGAR report, McKeon had written another letter — reprinted in the final report — saying the DOD had been fully prepared to give SIGAR access to documents and officials but that the office had "not availed itself of these offers of assistance."

SIGAR and Sopko strongly disputed that, saying that promises of documents and access had never materialized despite repeated requests. Access to certain archived documents was offered under conditions of DOD review which SIGAR rejected, the report added.

Despite that, the SIGAR report said, Sopko plans to continue looking into the task force's activities to look at how it operated, what it achieved and whether any criminal conduct occurred. The review into the gas station was one part of that.

McKeon told NBC News that he supports the work of SIGAR and other Inspectors General — and that he's sure the answers Sopko and SIGAR are looking for can be found in the archived documents on the task force.

"I don't know what a CNG facility in Afghanistan should cost," he said. "I'm sure there's a lot more information in the archive and records that show what the original estimates were and explain more why it cost what it did."

[ttt]

I think this kind of thing happens a lot more often than we ever find out about. The military-industrial complex is indeed powerful. It is an enormous racket, with a small group of people (cough cough Dick Cheney) getting obscenely wealthy. Meanwhile, veterans health programs and benefits to military personnel are being cut because of "lack of funding." What a joke.

[summer]

I'm trying to reconcile this with what I hear on American military radio every morning, what with overseas military families needing food pantry donations and the like.

[eclaires]

Nov 3, 2015 8:18:13 GMT -5 ttt said:

I think this kind of thing happens a lot more often than we ever find out about. The military-industrial complex is indeed powerful. It is an enormous racket, with a small group of people (cough cough Dick Cheney) getting obscenely wealthy. Meanwhile, veterans health programs and benefits to military personnel are being cut because of "lack of funding." What a joke.

I want to puke when I think about the money spent on training Syrians. It's a travesty. Worse than the total amount spent is the fact that we have virtually nothing to show for it.

[josieposy]

Nope. The real problem is welfare fraud.

*sarcasm*

[ttt]

Nov 3, 2015 9:41:37 GMT -5 josieposy said:

Nope. The real problem is welfare fraud.

*sarcasm*

Maybe we need to be drug testing the CEOs of companies like Bechtel and Blackwater?

[pixy0stix]

Nov 3, 2015 8:52:48 GMT -5 summer said:

I'm trying to reconcile this with what I hear on American military radio every morning, what with overseas military families needing food pantry donations and the like.

All the military money is spent on shit like this. The government doesn't care about the actual people.

[IIOY]

Read this and feel even worse about our incompetent government. TL;DR We shovel billions upon billions of dollars into Iraq, we've long ignored graft and corruption, and just recently we figured out some (a lot?) of our money was funding ISIS.

www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-cut-cash-to-iraq-on-iran-isis-fears-1446526799

[nikki25]

A good friend of mine works on the air force base and mentioned this type of spending all.the.time. Taking Afghanistan out of if, he stated he is required to use every single cent in their budget regardless if it is really needed. He then uses the money on bullshit and overpriced shit because he has been ordered to. The reason being that their budge depends on the year prior budget and if there is money leftover they will not receive that money the next year, even if something emerges and the additional money is needed. Therefore, he needs to spend every penny.

If we could get rid of this process and instead allow the same amount of financing with perks for overages. I have no idea if that is even possible.

[cattledogkisses]

Nov 3, 2015 10:55:03 GMT -5 nikki25 said:

A good friend of mine works on the air force base and mentioned this type of spending all.the.time. Taking Afghanistan out of if, he stated he is required to use every single cent in their budget regardless if it is really needed. He then uses the money on bullshit and overpriced shit because he has been ordered to. The reason being that their budge depends on the year prior budget and if there is money leftover they will not receive that money the next year, even if something emerges and the additional money is needed. Therefore, he needs to spend every penny.

If we could get rid of this process and instead allow the same amount of financing with perks for overages. I have no idea if that is even possible.

This is exactly what my H says too. It's so screwed up. 

[nikki25]

Nov 3, 2015 9:54:35 GMT -5 IIOY said:

Read this and feel even worse about our incompetent government. TL;DR We shovel billions upon billions of dollars into Iraq, we've long ignored graft and corruption, and just recently we figured out some (a lot?) of our money was funding ISIS.

www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-cut-cash-to-iraq-on-iran-isis-fears-1446526799

We also funded the Taliban so at least we are consistent!

We fund some organization. That organization gains strength and grows. 10 years later they are considered terrorists and now are spending money to overthrow them. Rinse and repeat. 

[ttt]

Nov 3, 2015 10:55:03 GMT -5 nikki25 said:

A good friend of mine works on the air force base and mentioned this type of spending all.the.time. Taking Afghanistan out of if, he stated he is required to use every single cent in their budget regardless if it is really needed. He then uses the money on bullshit and overpriced shit because he has been ordered to. The reason being that their budge depends on the year prior budget and if there is money leftover they will not receive that money the next year, even if something emerges and the additional money is needed. Therefore, he needs to spend every penny.

If we could get rid of this process and instead allow the same amount of financing with perks for overages. I have no idea if that is even possible.

Yes. The budgeting system for the government is totally messed up and incentivizes exactly the wrong things. That's how you end up with some departments that have tons of useless, expensive crap and other departments where nobody can even buy new pencils until the new fiscal year. 

[meshaliuknits]

Nov 3, 2015 10:55:03 GMT -5 nikki25 said:

A good friend of mine works on the air force base and mentioned this type of spending all.the.time. Taking Afghanistan out of if, he stated he is required to use every single cent in their budget regardless if it is really needed. He then uses the money on bullshit and overpriced shit because he has been ordered to. The reason being that their budge depends on the year prior budget and if there is money leftover they will not receive that money the next year, even if something emerges and the additional money is needed. Therefore, he needs to spend every penny.

If we could get rid of this process and instead allow the same amount of financing with perks for overages. I have no idea if that is even possible.

My company operates on this model.

[nikki25]

Nov 3, 2015 11:52:48 GMT -5 meshaliuknits said:

Nov 3, 2015 10:55:03 GMT -5 nikki25 said:

A good friend of mine works on the air force base and mentioned this type of spending all.the.time. Taking Afghanistan out of if, he stated he is required to use every single cent in their budget regardless if it is really needed. He then uses the money on bullshit and overpriced shit because he has been ordered to. The reason being that their budge depends on the year prior budget and if there is money leftover they will not receive that money the next year, even if something emerges and the additional money is needed. Therefore, he needs to spend every penny.

If we could get rid of this process and instead allow the same amount of financing with perks for overages. I have no idea if that is even possible.

My company operates on this model.

I mean I get it...kind of. Oh, they didn't spend all the money this year so they don't need it for next year! But, just as it was stated prior, they are incentivizing the completely wrong thing and overlooking the fact that it would save money for prioritizing saving money but still making it available for the following year.


Why is the answer, which is right in front of their faces, overlooked and so obvious to others but not to the 'budget makers.' 

[jillboston]

I can only imagine what living in the US would be like for the poor if even a fraction of the money wasted overseas was utilized here. We could fully fund programs like Section 8 (there is a 10 year waiting list in MA for people who are eligible for this housing subsidy). It is a crying shame how we allocate our resources as a country.