Real Estate News

no, not really…it was spent in Afghanistan - was it worth it?

well, here are 10 bad examples of "waste, fraud, and abuse"…could have been spent on affordable housing and jobs programs.

HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS WERE SPENT BY THE US IN AFGHANISTAN. HERE ARE 10 OF THE STARKEST EXAMPLES OF 'WASTE, FRAUD AND ABUSE'

In addition to the $85 billion of military equipment and weapons left behind in Afghanistan....here are som less costly but inane expenditure of us taxpayer and government debt.

1. Tarakhil power plant cost $335 million to build, and had an estimated annual fuel cost of $245 million. The most recent SIGAR assessment said at best it was used at just 2.2% capacity, as the Afghan government could not afford the fuel.
2. Pentagon chose the G222 - Six years after the procurement was launched, the 16 aircraft delivered to Afghanistan were sold for scrap for $40,257. The cost of the project: $549 million.
3. 64,000-square foot Marine HQ control center - It cost $36 million, was never used, and seems to have been later stripped by the Afghans, who also never appeared to use it.
4. Uniforms camouflage pattern, "Spec4ce Forest" cost $28 million more than a more appropriate pattern.
5. The US spent $1.5 million a day on counter-narcotics programs (from 2002 to 2018). Opium production was, according to the last SIGAR report, up in 2020 by 37% compared to the year before. This was the third-highest yield since records began in 1994.
6. $249 million being handed out to contractors, but only 15% of the road being built
7. An extensive hotel and apartment complex was commissioned next to the US Embassy in Kabul - "the $85 million in loans is gone, the buildings were never completed and are uninhabitable, and the U.S. Embassy is now forced to provide security for the site at additional cost to U.S. taxpayers."
8. Task Force for Business and Stability Operations (TFBSO) expanded from Iraq to include Afghanistan in 2009, for whose operations in Afghanistan Congress set aside $823 million.  Over half the money actually spent by TFBSO -- $359 million of $675 million -- was "spent on indirect and support costs, not directly on projects in Afghanistan," SIGAR concluded in an audit.
9. 510 projects they had been given coordinates for, did not exist in those locations.The audit said that USAID and the Afghan ministry of Public Health could only provide "oversight of these facilities [if they] know where they are." USAID declined to comment.
10. SIGAR was able to review $63 billion of it -- nearly half. They concluded $19 billion of that -- almost a third -- was "lost to waste, fraud, and abuse."