Afghan President Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, left, talks with a teacher as Mirwais Karzai, son of former president Hamid Karzai, stands at right, during a high school visit in Kabul in Sept. 2014. Wakil Kohsar/Associated Press
USAID’s Reported Success in Afghanistan May Be Based on Falsified Data
Watchdog says taxpayers may have paid for schools and teachers that don’t exist.
American-backed efforts to improve schools in war-torn Afghanistan may have relied on progress data that was falsified by Afghan government ministries seeking to keep the funding pipeline open, a watchdog said on Thursday.
The U.S. Agency for International Development, which has supervised distribution of $769 million to bolster schools in the war-ravaged country, was asked to check out the allegations detailed in a letter from John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction.
The letter reports that the new Afghan Education and Higher Education ministers recently told the legislature that former ministry officials who served under departed President Hamid Karzai provided false data to the government and international donors regarding the number of active schools in Afghanistan. “The ministers reported that there are no active schools in insecure parts of the country, and that former officials doctored statistics, embezzled money, and interfered with university entrance exams,” a SIGAR statement read. “These allegations suggest that the U.S. and other donors may have paid for schools that students do not attend and for the salaries of teachers who do not teach.”
USAID, the inspector general noted, has pointed to a rise in students enrolled in schools—from an estimated 900,000 in 2002 to more than 8 million in 2013—as an indicator of progress. But the agency cannot verify the data, Sopko wrote.
The money from USAID since the fall of the Taliban in 2001 comprises $599 million in off-budget assistance, $24 million in direct assistance, and $146 million in so-called “preferenced” funding to the World Bank’s Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund to support education programs, along with millions more to pay teachers.
The watchdog asked for a response by June 30 explaining what USAID is doing to verify data on school spending and to estimate how much has been spent on “ghost” teachers and the like. He also asked what steps the agency is taking to rethink use of off-budget assistance to Afghanistan for education.
Larry Sampler, USAID’s assistant to the administrator in its Office of Afghanistan and Pakistan Affairs, said in a statement that a full response is coming by June 30. "USAID is working with the new Government of Afghanistan to build a comprehensive, nationwide education system that will endure long after reductions in international assistance. We are training teachers, developing community-based education, supporting institutions of higher learning, and strengthening the ability of the Ministry of Education to deliver high-quality education throughout Afghanistan,” he said. “Today, millions of Afghan boys and girls are in school and, as a result of USAID and the international community’s investment, thousands more attending universities and entering Afghanistan’s growing workforce.”
Sampler added that the agency takes the allegations seriously and has asked the Afghan ministries for further information. “Like all USAID projects in Afghanistan, USAID-implemented education projects adhere to the agency's strict practices for monitoring their performance and success.” USAID has also joined the World Bank in offering technical assistance to the Afghan Education Ministry on improving data reliability, maintaining a full-time staffer in country.