Tolo TV staffers work in the control room of their office in Kabul, Afghanistan. AP file photo
The $2.6 Billion Investment in Afghan IT Infrastructure Is Apparently Paying Off
Watchdog reports rare success in the multi-agency effort to rebuild the war-torn nation.
American efforts to modernize communications to stabilize the economy of war-ravaged Afghanistan are paying off, according to an audit released on Friday by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.
Since 2002, the State and Defense departments, helped later by the U.S. Agency for International Development, have implemented programs costing more than $2.6 billion to support Afghanistan’s information and communications technology sector, SIGAR reported. By 2013, private investors had added another $2 billion, and “U.S. investment in the sector will likely continue for at least the next few years, with the intent of increasing the sector’s ability to continue providing much-needed revenue to the Afghan government.”
Hence SIGAR—which over the years has delivered a steady stream of mostly bad news about U.S. efforts to rebuild Afghanistan—now says, “According to U.S. and Afghan officials, the ICT sector is generally seen as a success.” Built around modern digital equipment and software, the sector contributed $1.81 billion in revenues to the Afghan government in 2013, employs about 130,000 Afghans, and provides mobile phone services to roughly 90 percent of the population.
Afghanistan’s communications sector, the Pentagon said, is its greatest source of foreign direct investment, the largest remitter of taxes to the government, and largest legal employer (many Afghan farmers and urban shippers continue to work in the centuries-old opium trade).
SIGAR noted that the U.S. agencies have taken steps to coordinate efforts among themselves and with other entities, including Afghan ministries and the World Bank.
However, “because the agencies were not required to track their ICT efforts in a centralized database, the information reported to SIGAR by DOD, State, and USAID may not be comprehensive or entirely reliable,” the report said. One $400 million Defense Department contract the SIGAR uncovered was not reported initially by the Pentagon, and USAID officials could not provide records previous to 2005.
A list of contracts shows the monies invested going to such services and products as an optical fiber network, WiFi, printers and copiers, laptops and radio repair.