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Sunday, November 15, 2009
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There's been lots said, correctly, about rampant corruption in th government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

But corruption amongst contractors, both international and Afghan subcontractors, is also rampant.

The concrete hut in this photo was built as a headquarters for the local village protection forces, known as AP3, that patrol roads in Wardak province. Wardak officials told me the contract was let to a local contractor by the US Special Forces team that was training the AP3. No doubt the Special Forces were in a hurry to get the thing built and weren't concerned with supervising the details.

This tiny hut has no water, no electricity, and no latrine. It does have a fence around it built with local stones. The cost, according to the head of Wardak's Provincial Council, who says he saw the contract: $105,000. And four of these headquarters were built. Locals that I spoke were disgusted with the waste of money, not to mention the shoddy building, and said a better headquarters could have been built for $5-10,000.

Think what $400,000 well spent could have accomplished in a strategically important province that lacks roads, electricity, good irrigation systems, cold storage for its fruit growers, and jobs.

Posted by Trudy Rubin @ 1:38 AM  Permalink | 3 comments
Comments   
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 8:12 AM, 11/15/2009
    Sounds like the corruption in Philadelphia
    ritaf
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 12:52 PM, 11/15/2009
    Sounds like the corruption at Goldman Sachs or General Dynamics.
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 12:55 PM, 11/19/2009
    That was a complete waste of time and money. This is a physical display of corruption amongst contractors. Why would you build any type of head quarters without electricity, water, or latrines? Why would the contract for such a place without basic essentials amount to 105, 000 when a better headquarters could have been built for much less. The money spent on the shabby buildings, could have been put towards other things that were more important like roads, irrigation systems, cold storage units, and electricity.
    NellyC18


3 comments
About Trudy Rubin
Trudy Rubin’s Worldview column runs on Thursdays and Sundays. In 2009-2011 she has made four lengthy trips to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Over the past seven years, she visited Iraq eleven times, and also wrote from Iran, Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, China, and South Korea. She is the author of Willful Blindness: the Bush Administration and Iraq, a book of her columns from 2002-2004. In 2001 she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in commentary and in 2008 she was awarded the Edward Weintal prize for international reporting. In 2010 she won the Arthur Ross award for international commentary from the Academy of American Diplomacy.