The Enron-isation of Afghanistan?William Fisher
NEW YORK, May 3 (IPS) - "Contractors in Afghanistan are making big money for bad work" -- that is the conclusion reached in a new report from CorpWatch written by an Afghan-American journalist who returned to her native country to examine the progress of reconstruction.
"The [George W.] Bush administration touts the reconstruction effort in Afghanistan as a success story," the report says, but claims that reconstruction has been "bungled" by "many of the same politically connected corporations which are doing similar work in Iraq", receiving "massive open-ended contracts" without competitive bidding or with limited competition.
"These companies are pocketing millions, and leaving behind a people increasingly frustrated and angry with the results," the report says. Foreign contractors "make as much as 1,000 dollars a day, while the Afghans they employ make 5 dollars per day," the report charges.
Examples cited in the report by author Fariba Nawa:
"A highway that begins crumbling before it is finished. A school with a collapsed roof. A clinic with faulty plumbing. A farmers' cooperative that farmers can't use. Afghan police and military that, after training, are incapable of providing the most basic security." ...
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