State Department mismanagement of funds could have assisted the Taliban

Military

The compliance failure comes as Taliban affiliates seek to obtain American funds “intended to benefit the Afghan people” through non-governmental organizations in the country.

Investigators said the Taliban could have passed the funds to terrorist groups, thereby showing “the importance of State complying with its own vetting and document retention requirements.” File Image.

Investigators warned that two federal agencies failed to properly manage their grant programs in Afghanistan, even as the Taliban seeks American funds by means of defrauding such programs.

American military assets withdrew from Afghanistan three years ago, after which the national government immediately collapsed and the Taliban rose to power. Investigators with the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, the main oversight body for American funds used to rebuild the South Asian nation, issued a report last month warning that two of the five State Department entities they examined “provided some documentation but not enough” to demonstrate that they had complied with vetting guidelines for their initiatives in Afghanistan.

Those two entities, the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, and the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, failed to show they complied with “partner vetting requirements for many of their programs” on at least $293 million in disbursed funds.

The compliance failure comes as Taliban affiliates seek to obtain American funds “intended to benefit the Afghan people” through non-governmental organizations in the country. Investigators said the Taliban could have passed the funds to terrorist groups, thereby showing “the importance of State complying with its own vetting and document retention requirements.”

USAID officials warned the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction last year that several hundred new organizations, many with Taliban affiliations, have recently registered with the government of Afghanistan, possibly in order to access funds for terrorism.

The document said State Department officials “acknowledged that not all bureaus complied with document retention requirements,” especially as the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs saw “employee turnover” and the dissolution of their office for Afghanistan.

President Joe Biden has been criticized for the handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal, which corresponded with trust in the American military dropping to the lowest level observed in two decades.