The fall and fall of
Afghanistan By William Fisher
NEW YORK - "Contractors in Afghanistan are
making big money for bad work." That is the
conclusion reached in a new report from CorpWatch
written by an Afghan-American journalist who
returned to her native country to examine the
progress of reconstruction.
"The [George
W] Bush administration touts the reconstruction
effort in Afghanistan as a success story," the
report said, but claimed that reconstruction has
been "bungled" by "many of the same politically
connected corporations which are doing similar
work in Iraq", receiving "massive open-ended
contracts" without
competitive bidding or with
limited competition.
"These companies are
pocketing millions, and leaving behind a people
increasingly frustrated and angry with the
results," the report said. Foreign contractors
"make as much as US$1,000 a day, while the Afghans
they employ make $5 per day," the report charged.
Examples cited in the report by author
Fariba Nawa included a highway that began
crumbling before it was finished; a school with a
collapsed roof; a clinic with faulty plumbing; a
farmers' cooperative that farmers can't use;
Afghan police and military that, after training,
are incapable of providing the most basic
security.
Nawa said such examples abounded
in the country. She wrote, "Near Kabul city in the
village of Qalai Qazi, Afghanistan, stands a new,
bright-yellow health clinic built by American
contractor The Louis Berger Group. The clinic was
meant to function as a sterling example of
American engineering, and to serve as a model for
81 clinics Berger was hired to build - in addition
to roads, dams, schools and other infrastructure -
in exchange for the $665 million in American aid
money the company has so far received in federal
contracts.
"The problem is, this 'model'
clinic was falling apart: the ceiling had rotted
away in patches; the plumbing, when it worked,
leaked and shuddered; the chimney, made of flimsy
metal, threatened to set the roof on fire; the
sinks had no running water; and the place smelled
of sewage," the report said.
The US-led
reconstruction effort has directed substantial
resources toward eradicating illicit poppy
growing. It awarded a contract worth $120 million
over four years to train opium growers in the
cultivation of alternative crops.
One part
of the program "instructed farmers in Parwan to
grow more vegetables, and promised to find buyers
for them both within the country and beyond. The
farmers, who normally planted beans and lentils,
grew green vegetables as encouraged. But instead
of profiting, they lost money. Vegetables flooded
the market and drove the price down," the report
said.
In another part of the same program,
the report said, it was determined that Afghan
farmers, who make up about 80% of the working
population, needed canals and irrigation systems
and the means to get their product to domestic
markets more efficiently, to minimize crop loss
and to re-establish their access to the
international market.
The contractor's
solution was to build irrigation canals. But the
report pointed out that poppies need very little
water or fertilizer to thrive. The result, the
report said, was that opium-poppy growers used the
water in the canals to grow even more poppies.
The report said the US hired a number of
public relations companies to put a positive face
on the reconstruction effort. One of them was the
Washington-based Rendon Group, which the report
said had "close ties to the Bush administration".
The Pentagon has awarded Rendon more than $56
million in contracts since September 11, 2001, "as
part of a coordinated effort to disseminate
positive press about America and its military in
the developing world".
The contracts
called for "tracking foreign reporters" and
"pushing (and sometimes paying) news outlets
worldwide to run articles and segments favorable
to United States interests".
The report
said Rendon was also granted a contract in 2004 to
train staff at President Hamid Karzai's office in
the art of public relations, and "later received
another hefty grant of $3.9 million from the
Pentagon to develop a counter-narcotics campaign
with the Afghan Interior Ministry - despite
objections from Karzai and the State Department".
The report charged that the contracting
system used by international donors was broken. It
said the US Agency for International Development
(USAID) "gives contracts to American companies
(and the World Bank and IMF [International
Monetary Fund] give contracts to companies from
their donor countries) who take huge chunks off
the top and hire layers and layers of
subcontractors who take their cuts, leaving only
enough for sub-par construction".
"Quality
assurance is minimal; contractors know well they
can swoop in, put a new coat of paint on a rickety
building, and submit their bill, with rarely a
question asked. The result is collapsing
hospitals, clinics and schools, rutted and
dangerous new highways, a 'modernized'
agricultural system that has actually left some
farmers worse off than before, and emboldened
militias and warlords who are more able to unleash
violence on the people of Afghanistan."
Afghans, the report said, "are losing
their faith in the development experts whose job
is to reconstruct and rebuild their country ...
What the people see is a handful of foreign
companies setting priorities for reconstruction
that make the companies wealthy, yet are sometimes
absurdly contrary to what is necessary."
Meanwhile, the report said, "The security
situation in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate,
directly threatening ongoing reconstruction. Some
of the fighting is simply the result of deep
frustration and distrust among Afghans who no
longer believe the international community is
looking out for their best interests."
The
"deliberate use of warlords and militias in
reconstruction efforts has only lent them more
credibility and power, further undermining the
elected government and fueling a Taliban-led
insurgency that continues to gain power".
The basic infrastructure in the country,
the report concluded, "is in shambles; the drug
trade is booming. This result should be seen as a
major setback to the 'war on terror'. To Afghans,
who after decades of war, believed they would
finally catch a break, it's a heartbreak."
Professor Beau Grosscup of California
State University at Chico agreed. He said, "This
report confirms that Afghanistan has been
'Enron-ized' by the Bush administration.
"As with the demise of Enron, the future
of Afghanistan is one in which the 'get rich
quick' class at the top will escape with their
bounty, while the poor who were encouraged to
invest heavily in 'reconstruction' and promised
prosperity will be left to live in the rubble."
