Friday, January 22, 2016

Pentagon Unable to Explain How $800 Million Program in Afghanistan Failed


ACC- Nobody knows where all the money went. The guy running the program said he just approved projects without having any idea how much they were going to cost.

Nothing like having a pile of taxpayer money to play with I say. No need to be exact. Hell, no need to even be remotely competent apparently. Just write those checks and dump them into that giant hole in the Kandahar Desert.
“Founding director Paul Brinkley told SIGAR that as TFBSO director, he approved programs without knowing what they would cost… Since April 2015, DOD has stated that since Congress ended funding for TFBSO, the Department does not have the expertise, authority, or funding to respond to investigations related to TFBSO activities in Afghanistan,” reports Bronstein. “DOD’s responses to SIGAR requests since March 2015 raises a question whether TFBSO operated independent of any internal DOD management and oversight.”
“The stated failure of the Department to retain any institutional knowledge, and its apparent failure to seek input from what institutional knowledge remained at DOD, indicates a fundamental lack of planning that has resulted in adverse effects on oversight and accountability” he adds. “This failure inhibits oversight of the activities of a Task Force that obligated approximately $760 million.”  
Of the nearly $823 million that Congress had appropriated since 2009 for the program in Afghanistan as of September 30, 2015, nearly $760 million was obligated and about $640 million has been disbursed.