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Malliotakis: Money Should Not be Sent to Afghanistan with Track Record of Corruption & Fraud

October 6, 2021

(WASHINGTON, DC) - Following today's House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Development Assistance During Conflict: Lessons from Afghanistan, Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis (NY-11) blasted the Biden Administration for its decision to send $64 million in new aid to Afghanistan citing Special Inspector General for Afghanistan (SIGAR) John Sopko's testimony revealing hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars being stolen and billions more wasted.

Inspector General Sopko revealed taxpayer dollars have been wasted on so-called "ghost armies" of Afghan Armed Forces troops and fuel sources that have been stolen. Malliotakis also points to reports of the U.S. spending billionson buildings and vehicles that were abandoned or destroyed. The Inspector General made clear that oversight of U.S. financial assistance to Afghanistan was ineffectual in preventing fraud even with U.S. forces and diplomats on the ground. Malliotakis believes that now, with no U.S. officials on the ground, it can be expected that any further aid provided will be squandered.

"Congress' role is to protect the American taxpayer, and sending money to a country that has wasted U.S. aid for decades, and is now controlled by a terrorist regime, is extremely wasteful, irresponsible, and dangerous," said Congresswoman Malliotakis, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on International Development, International Organizations and Global Corporate Social Impact. "There is absolutely no guarantee this money won't end up in the hands of corrupt actors, terrorists, or the Taliban, and in fact, based on Afghanistan's track record, it seems highly likely that it will. The U.S. should not be sending more good money after bad. I call on my colleagues to join me in exercising our oversight role and prohibiting any further money from being sent to Afghanistan without Congressional approval."

Inspector General Sopko recently released an August 2021 reporttitled,What We Need to Learn: Lessons from Twenty Years in Afghanistan, which highlighted the following:

  • SIGAR's investigations have resulted in 160 criminal convictions for defrauding the U.S. Government.
  • The Biden Administration has requested more than $3 billion for Afghanistan's reconstruction in the coming year despite billions of U.S. reconstruction dollars already being wasted or unused.
  • Powerbrokers have found ways to divert U.S. assistance away from its intended purpose in order to enrich themselves and their allies. Many projects meant to mitigate conflict often exacerbated it, and even inadvertently funded insurgents.
  • Contract work in Afghanistan is often performed with little to no oversight, leading to waste and fraud going virtually unchecked. One former USAID official recounted how a secretive business in Kandahar would, for a fee, provide contractors with generic photographs of projects customized with fraudulent geotags embedded in the digital photos to help contractors defraud USAID.

Watch Malliotakis' questioning of Inspector General SopkoHERE

Issues:Congress