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87–460 PDF 2014

STATUS OF U.S. FOREIGN ASSISTANCE TO AFGHANISTAN IN ANTICIPATION OF THE U.S. 

TROOPS WITHDRAWAL 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

MARCH 13, 2014 

Serial No. 113–97 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 

http://www.house.gov/reform 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California, Chairman 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan 

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona 

PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

DOC HASTINGS, Washington 

CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming 

ROB WOODALL, Georgia 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

KERRY L. BENTIVOLIO, Michigan 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Ranking 

Minority Member 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

MATTHEW A. CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois 

TONY CARDENAS, California 

STEVEN A. HORSFORD, Nevada 

MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, New Mexico 

Vacancy 

LAWRENCE J. BRADY, Staff Director 

JOHN D. CUADERES, Deputy Staff Director 

STEPHEN CASTOR, General Counsel 

LINDA A. GOOD, Chief Clerk 

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah, Chairman 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming 

ROB WOODALL, Georgia 

KERRY L. BENTIVOLIO, Michigan 

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts Ranking 

Minority Member 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, New Mexico 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on March 13, 2014 ............................................................................ 1 

WITNESSES 

Mr. Donald L. Sampler, Jr., Assistant to the Administrator and Director, 

Office of Afghanistan and Pakistan Affairs, U.S. Agency for International 

Development 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 5 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 9 

Mr. Charles M. Johnson, Jr., Director, International Affairs and Trade, U.S. 

Government Accountability Office 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 19 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 21 

(1) 

STATUS OF U.S. FOREIGN ASSISTANCE TO AFGHANISTAN IN ANTICIPATION OF THE U.S. 

TROOPS WITHDRAWAL 

Thursday, March 13, 2014, 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, 

Washington, D.C. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:31 p.m., in Room 

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jason Chaffetz [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Chaffetz, Lummis, Mica, Duncan, 

Woodall, Tierney, Maloney, Speier, Welch, and Lujan Grisham. 

Staff Present: Caitlin Carroll, Majority Press Secretary; Linda 

Good, Majority Chief Clerk; Mitchell S. Kominsky, Majority Counsel; Sarah Vance, Majority Assistant Clerk; Sang H. Yi, Majority 

Professional Staff Member; Jaron Bourke, Minority Director of Administration; Devon Hill, Minority Research Assistant; Peter 

Kenny, Minority Counsel; and Julia Krieger, Minority New Media 

Press Secretary. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. The committee will come to order. 

I would like to begin this hearing by stating the Oversight Committee mission statement: We exist to secure two fundamental 

principles: first, Americans have a right to know that the money 

Washington takes from them is well spent and, second, Americans 

deserve an efficient, effective Government that works for them. Our 

duty on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee is to 

protect these rights. 

Our solemn responsibility is to hold Government accountable to 

taxpayers, because taxpayers have a right to know what they get 

from their Government. We will work tirelessly in partnership with 

citizen watchdogs to deliver the facts to the American people and 

bring genuine reform to the Federal bureaucracy. This is the mission of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. 

Good afternoon. I would like to welcome everybody to this hearing today, which is entitled, Status of U.S. Foreign Assistance to 

Afghanistan in Anticipation of the U.S. Troops Withdrawal. 

I would like to welcome Ranking Member Tierney, members of 

the subcommittee, and members that are joining us here today in 

the audience. 

Today’s hearing is critical because Afghanistan is consistently 

the leading recipient of U.S. foreign assistance. This assistance continues, but our greatest contribution to the future of Afghanistan 

2 

has been the sacrifice of 1,795 U.S. military personnel. In addition, 

19,665 Americans have been wounded in action since September 

11th, 2001. We can never forget them. We owe them so much gratitude for their sacrifice for this Nation. There are countless others 

that have taken time away from their families and their careers to 

serve on behalf of the United States of America. 

Since 2002, the United States’ Government has appropriated 

more than $102 billion for relief and reconstruction in Afghanistan. 

That does not include the war fight. That does not include our 

troops. That does not include the food for our troops or the military 

equipment. This is for relief and reconstruction. In recent years, 

the United States and other donors have funded about 90 percent 

of Afghanistan’s total public expenditures. Of that 90 percent, the 

United States contributed roughly 62 percent. The United States 

continues to make substantial military and financial commitments 

in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Afghanistan is perhaps the most corrupt nation on the face of the planet. We know this, it is not a secret. 

The challenge is in properly overseeing the assistance we provide 

Afghanistan are already difficult in the current environment with 

a United States military presence. For example, onsite monitoring 

is often restricted by security concerns. These challenges will only 

grow as U.S. troops leave Afghanistan. I have traveled to Afghanistan several times with the support the help, and the protection of 

the United States military, which is drawing down its efforts. 

The hearing will focus on this pivotal question: If we can’t sufficiently oversee the billions of dollars we are spending now, should 

we continue spending billions with less visibility, less oversight, 

less security? And yet you will find through this hearing that we 

are actually going to be spending more money than ever in Afghanistan, which I think will be a surprise to most Americans. 

At the same time, the national security and economic stakes of 

our mission in Afghanistan are higher than ever. Therefore, we 

must ensure our aid programs are properly monitored. American 

taxpayers cannot afford to have their hard earned dollars sent 

overseas only to find our aid efforts plagued by waste, fraud, and 

abuse. Americans deserve better and so do our international partners. 

Ranking Member Tierney and I have held numerous bipartisan 

subcommittee hearings addressing some of the worst cases of 

waste, fraud, and abuse encumbering effective U.S. foreign assistance in Afghanistan. The subcommittee, prior to my even joining 

this committee, had been doing and working on this. The subcommittee has investigated petroleum oil and lubricants provided 

to the Afghan National Army by the United States totaling nearly 

half a billion dollars. Meanwhile, the Defense Department failed to 

properly maintain receipts for these transactions, and the Department of Defense wants to given them even more money. 

We have also investigated Dawood Hospital, where the United 

States provided more than $150 million in medical supplies in just 

an 18 month period. Unfortunately theft, mismanagement, and 

human suffering became rampant at Dawood. We still don’t have 

the proper accounting on that. 

3 

In 2012, a $1 billion bank scandal, one of the worst in banking 

history, erupted at the Kabul Bank. We will talk more about that 

later. 

Corruption in Afghanistan is likely the biggest threat to our ability to effectively administer foreign assistance. We are now at a 

point where uncertainty of troop levels beyond 2014 in Afghanistan 

will hinder our ability to effectively administer foreign aid. This 

Administration’s failure to secure a bilateral security agreement 

with the Afghan government means that agencies like USAID are 

left guessing at how much onsite monitoring of aid programs will 

be possible. But, again, we are going to be spending more money, 

giving more money direct to the Afghan government than ever before. 

Yesterday, the Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing 

and heard from the Defense Department that because of the absence of a signed bilateral security agreement, Department of Defense will begin planning for various contingencies in Afghanistan. 

Today I look forward to hearing from USAID’s contingency plans. 

We need to know that U.S. foreign assistance to Afghanistan will 

be properly monitored after the withdrawal of our troops. 

In 2012, I held a subcommittee hearing assessing the transition 

from a military-to a civilian-led mission in Iraq. The transition in 

Iraq was an unprecedented mission for the State Department and 

our diplomatic corps functioned without the protections of a typical 

host nation. The USAID Inspector General’s Office testified that 

‘‘According to the USAID mission, the security situation has hampered its ability to monitor programs. Mission personnel are only 

occasionally able to travel to the field for site visits.’’ 

Afghanistan is likely to offer even greater challenges, and I want 

us to learn from our experiences in Iraq. In that 2012 hearing, I 

asked the witnesses to think towards the future in planning for the 

transition in Afghanistan. Today we are much closer to that transition and I look forward to hearing from our witness panel. 

I would now like to recognize the gentleman from Massachusetts, 

the ranking member, somebody who has poured an awful lot of energy into this issue and understands it quite well, Mr. Tierney, for 

his opening statement. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the 

hearing. This is, as you mentioned, the third in a series of hearings 

held by the full committee and the subcommittee on national security in the 113th Congress and about the challenges of administering and overseeing foreign aid in Afghanistan. So today’s hearing is going to focus on the civilian side of development efforts in 

light of the planned draw down of United States military forces. 

Mr. Chairman, as you know, the vast majority of foreign assistance in Afghanistan is not managed by USAID, but by the Defense 

Department. Since 2002, the vast majority of that money, $59 billion, is for the Defense Department’s programs to train, equip, and 

sustain the Afghanistan national security forces. We have had a 

number of hearings on that in the past and I believe that you agree 

with me that we are to do more hearings on that as we go forward. 

Even this year, when we plan to draw down many of our troops, 

we still plan to spend more than four times as much on Defense 

Department assistance programs than we will on civilian assistVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:45 Apr 24, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\87460.TXT APRIL
4 

ance programs. USAID’s share is still substantial, however. Over 

$15 billion has been invested since 2002. We have to ensure that 

in Afghanistan, as in other high-risk locations, USAID is properly 

managing and accounting for how the taxpayer dollars are being 

spent. This includes improving efforts to collect data and monitor 

and evaluate program performance and outcomes. 

Assistant Administrator Sampler brings some significant experience to the table on this, having lived in Kabul and traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan over 60 times, as I understand. I look forward to Mr. Sample’s testimony today on what USAID is doing and 

what they can do to still keep its personnel and its partners’ personnel safe, and to ensure the accountability of taxpayer funds in 

Afghanistan. 

This subcommittee and the full committee have also taken a closer look at the Administration’s policy of providing assistance directly to the Afghan government, which the chairman just mentioned. A recent Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction Report raised serious concerns over USAID’s decision to 

move forward with direct assistance at seven Afghan ministries, 

despite external audits identifying many deficiencies at these ministries, deficiencies that have not been corrected. 

While I understand that USAID takes a different view of the actual risk to taxpayer funds, it would be unfair to only focus on this 

report today in the absence of our Inspector General John Sopko. 

Nevertheless, I look forward to hearing more about how USAID is 

ensuring that direct assistance in Afghanistan, how it is protecting 

from waste, fraud, and abuse, especially given the endemic corruption that exists in Afghanistan. 

At our full committee hearing nearly one year ago, Inspector 

General Sopko raised serious concerns that the draw down of the 

United States military will limit the ability of U.S. personnel to directly oversee projects both because of security concerns and because movement can only be supported within a one-hour round 

trip of any medical facility. This could limit access to some reconstruction sites, including the $75 million USAID-funded Kajaki 

dam project. Although the inspector general is not here today, I 

look forward to hearing whether the Government Accountability 

Office is experiencing some of those same challenges to access. 

Mr. Chairman, as you know, USAID operates in some of the 

most challenging parts of the world, including Pakistan, Iraq, and 

South Sudan, and, in these locations, USAID does not depend on 

the United States military either for their personnel security or to 

facilitate direct oversight of their projects. We may want to hear 

some of how that works in those locations and how it will be applied to this situation going forward. 

There are currently 34,000 United States troops in Afghanistan. 

By the end of this year, there will be 12,000 or 10,000 or perhaps 

8,000 troops remaining to train and equip missions, as well as limited counterterrorism operations. Yet, conditions on the ground, 

and most prominently President Karzai’s refusal to sign the bilateral security agreement, has led President Obama to recently ask 

our military to consider a complete withdrawal by the end of the 

year. 

5 

I hope that today’s hearing will be the beginning of additional 

hearings focusing on the Administration’s policy regarding a continued troop presence, whether it should in fact be a zero option 

or whether it should be 2, 4, 6, 8, 12 or however many troops. One 

line of question will certainly be: If the zero option, or close to it, 

is chosen, or if relatively few troops are maintained in Afghanistan, 

will any portion of them be utilized to ensure oversight of USAID 

programs? Are they necessary or desirable for such tasks? What 

are the other options to ensure safe oversight of USAID projects 

and spending? 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

I remind members that they have seven days to submit opening 

statements for the record. 

We are now going to recognize our first panel. Mr. Sampler is the 

Assistant to the Administrator of the Office of Afghanistan and 

Pakistan Affairs at the U.S. Agency for International Development, 

often referred to as USAID. Mr. Johnson is the Director of International Affairs and Trade at the U.S. Government Accountability 

Office. 

I want to thank both you gentlemen for your expertise, your commitment to our Country and our Nation. I know you care deeply 

about her and your expertise is appreciated here today. We are 

going to ask some difficult questions but, again, don’t let there be 

any question about your personal patriotism, your commitment to 

our Nation. This is a good back and forth with the United States 

Congress and we appreciate your being here today. 

With that, we will now, pursuant to committee rules, all witnesses need to be sworn before they testify, so if you will please 

rise and raise your right hands. Do you solemnly swear or affirm 

that the testimony you are about to give will be the truth, the 

whole truth, and nothing but the truth? 

[Witnesses respond in the affirmative.] 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. You may be seated. 

Let the record reflect that the witnesses both answered in the affirmative. 

In order to allow time for discussion, we would appreciate you 

limiting your testimony to five minutes. But given that there are 

two panel members and only one panel, feel free to take a little bit 

of liberty with that. Just also know that your entire written statement will be made part of the record. 

With that, we will now recognize Mr. Sampler. 

WITNESS STATEMENTS 

STATEMENT OF DONALD L. SAMPLER, JR. 

Mr. SAMPLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your remarks, for 

your welcome. Thank you both very much for allowing me the opportunity to testify today and discuss the role of the U.S. Agency 

for International Development in Afghanistan. 

We understand that the fiscal reality that our Nation faces at 

home means that resources available for Afghanistan will decline. 

This is going to require tough decisions, prioritizing investments so 

that we identify the ones with the greatest potential for long-term 

6 

sustainability. We are committed to safeguarding taxpayer funds 

and to ensuring that the development progress in Afghanistan is 

maintained and made durable. 

I have been working on and in Afghanistan, both in civilian and 

military capacities, since 2002. In addition to having worked with 

the Afghan Emergency Loya Jirga, the Constitutional Loya Jirga, 

I have served as a representative of an international NGO, I was 

the chief of staff of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, and 

I have been a civilian representative of both the Departments of 

State and USAID. I bring all these perspectives to my work and 

to my testimony today. 

After the fall of the Taliban regime, I saw firsthand an Afghanistan that had been utterly destroyed by decades of war. In 2002, 

Afghanistan was starting with literally nothing. However, since 

that time positive developmental trends have been truly remarkable and they strongly reflect areas of USAID and U.S. Government interest and investment. 

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently said, when 

woman succeed, the world succeeds. Well, in Afghanistan today, 

there are over 3,000 women-owned businesses and associations. Almost 20 percent of Afghans enrolling in higher education or college 

are women, and women are active participants in Afghan political 

processes. 

On the UNDP Human Development Index, an important global 

metric for professional professionals, Afghanistan made the largest 

gains on a percentage basis of any country in the past decade. 

In 2002 there were less than 900,000 Afghan children in school. 

Today there are almost 8 million Afghan children in school, and 30 

percent of those are girls. 

With respect to health, one of the areas where we made the most 

progress, life expectancy has increased from 42 years to 62 years 

in Afghanistan. 

Maternal mortality rates have decreased by over 80 percent and 

child mortality has decreased by 50 percent. 

Again, in 2002, less than 6 percent of the Afghan population had 

access to electricity. Today that number is approximately 20 percent. 

Finally, in 2002, there were no fixed telephone lines, and if I 

wanted to make a call out of the country it required a satellite 

phone. Today the combined phone networks cover 90 percent of the 

population of Afghanistan; 85 percent of the women in Afghanistan 

have access to a cell phone; and the telecommunications sector is 

Afghanistan’s greatest source of foreign direct investment, the largest remitter of taxes to the government of Afghanistan, and the 

biggest listed employer, providing over 100,000 jobs. 

To assist the Afghans in securing these important gains and to 

enable them to build on these gains, USAID is engaged with the 

U.S. Interagency and with other donors to ensure that we have a 

transition policy that is sound, and I am happy to talk about that 

today. We are also focused on assuring that the Afghan government remains accountable during the transition process. At a senior officials meeting in Kabul last July, I announced a U.S. incentive fund of $75 million. These funds would be released to the Afghan government as they met specific thresholds of progress in five 

7 

key areas: elections, subnational governance, human rights, public 

finance, and economic growth. To date, we have released $30 million of the $75 million, we have denied $30 million of the $75 million for inadequate progress, and $15 million is still in play pending Afghan performance. 

USAID places high priority on ensuring that American taxpayer 

dollars are used wisely, effectively, and only for their intended purpose. In a post-2014 environment, it will continue to be a difficult 

place to operate and we know that we will face challenges in the 

delivery of development assistance. Looking ahead, I believe the 

main challenges we face will be a volatile and uncertain security 

situation, oversight and monitoring of a complex and still robust 

portfolio, and the Afghan capacity for governance at all levels and 

in all sectors, which continues to grow. But, to be clear, USAID will 

terminate or redesign programs if we determine that a particular 

program cannot be adequately overseen or that it is not making 

adequate progress. 

One developmentally sound technique for building Afghan capacity to sustain the gains we have made so far and to allow the 

United States to transition out of our assistance program over time 

is government-to-government, or direct, assistance. USAID has a 

rigorous system of oversight for direct assistance programming 

with the Afghan government. It is complicated; different ministries 

have different strengths and weaknesses, and different programs 

are funded in different ways. But, in summation, there are a number of multiple levels of protection that we use to identify and mitigate risk before we disburse any funds: we may require the establishment of a non-comingle, separate bank account for each project; 

we disburse funds only after USAID has verified that a particular 

milestone has been reached or after we have verified the accrued 

costs; we require an annual audit by a USAID inspector generalapproved external audit firm; we will insist on substantial involvement in ministerial procurement processes. 

All direct assistance requires compliance with USAID accountability and oversight procedures. This includes site visits. If Afghan 

ministries fail to adhere to these measures, the agreements are 

subject to immediate suspension or termination. 

In conclusion, let me say that USAID is always mindful of the 

enormous sacrifices made by Americans, our allies, our Afghan 

partners to build and secure a stable Afghanistan, and we fully understand the need for constant vigilance, particularly during this 

delicate transition period. Whether in the military, as a government civilian, as an implementing partner, I personally know the 

risks and sacrifices my brothers and sisters in the services have 

made, and their families have made as well, and I thank them also 

for their service. 

We are under no illusions about the challenges, though, that we 

continue to face in Afghanistan. Problems of limited capacity and 

corruption certainly exist in Afghanistan, just as they do in many 

of the other places where we operate, and they will continue to be 

a challenge for us, as was noted. However, these problems are not 

reasons to abandon our vital national interests. Instead, they are 

reasons to redouble the care and diligence of our efforts as we assist Afghanistan and as we pursue U.S. national interests. It is an 

8 

honor to be able to share with you today a glimpse of what USAID 

is doing in that regard, and I look forward to the conversation. 

Thank you. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Sampler follows:] 

9 


Insert offset folio 1 here 87460.001

Statement for the Record 

United States Agency for International Development 

Donald L. Sampler 

Assistant to the Administrator and Director 

orthe Office of Afghanistan and Pakistan Affairs 

Before the House Oversight and Government Reform 

Subcommittee on National Security 

"Status or U.S. Foreign Assistance to Afghanistan 

in Anticipation ofthe U.S. Troop Withdrawal" 

Thursday, March 13,2014, 1 :30 p.m. 

Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member Tierney, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for 

allowing me the opportunity to testify before you today to discuss the role of the U.S. Agency for 

International Development (USAJD) in advancing U.S. Government policy through USAID's 

civilian assistance program during and after this transition year in Afghanistan. USAID partners 

to end extreme poverty and promote resilient, democratic societies while advaneing our security 

and prosperity. It is an honor to appear before you today with Mr. Charles Johnson, Jr., Director, 

International Affairs and Trade, U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). 

This transition period is a pivotal moment for Afghanistan, in anticipation of which USAJD has 

been planning and adjusting its programming to maximize sustainability, oversight and 

accountability. Throughout our efforts, we are applying important lessons from the past twelve 

years in Afghanistan, as well as from other high-risk environments in which USAJD has worked. 

We understand fully that the fiscal reality our nation faces at home means that resources 

available for Afghanistan will decline over time. Weaning Afghanistan from unsustainable 

levels of assistance is necessary for us, and essential for them. To achieve this without triggering 

a crisis, we must remain a strong partner and continue to provide assistance in areas critical to 

Afghan development and stability. To do this with fewer resources, we are making tough 

decisions and prioritizing investments that have the greatest potential for long term 

sustainability. As USAJD navigates through the 2014 transition period, we are committed to 
10 


Insert offset folio 2 here 87460.002

expending every effort to safeguard taxpayer funds and ensure that the development progress in 

Afghanistan is maintained and made durable. 

Over the course of the last 12 years, USAID's funding has amounted to approximately seventeen 

percent ofthe funds allocated by Congress for Afghanistan for both military and civilian 

reconstruction, and just two percent ofthe total military and civilian cost of the war. The 

USAID role in Afghanistan is to promote a stable, inclusive and increasingly prosperous country. 

During the past decade, Afghanistan has made remarkable development gains across multiple 

sectors due to the whole-of-government efforts of the U.S., along with our international partners 

and the Afghan people. 

I have been working on and in Afghanistan in both civilian and military capacities since 2002. 

In addition to having worked with the Afghan Constitutional Loya Jirga and the Afghan 

Emergency Loya Jirga, I have served as a representative of an international non-governmental 

organization, and as chief of staff of the UN Assistance Mission to Afghanistan. I bring these 

perspectives to USAID's work today. 

USAID and Results 

After the fall of the Taliban regime, I saw firsthand an Afghanistan devastated by decades of 

conflict. Although Afghanistan had a very low starting point, the upward developmental trends 

show powerful aggregation over a decade and strongly reflect areas of US AID investment. 

Changes of this magnitUde are not made overnight, especially in such a deeply traditional society 

and challenging operational environment. Meaningful, impactful gains in Afghanistan, made 

possible with the support of international civilian assistance, and led by the United States, are 

significant, though fragile: 

• Afghanistan made the largest gains on a percentage basis in the UNDP Human 

Development Index than any other country in the past decade. 

2 
11 


Insert offset folio 3 here 87460.003

• Education: in 2002, there were only 900,000 Afghan children in school, and virtually 

none of them were girls. Today, nearly approximately 8 million children are registered to 

attend school and more than one-third of them are girls. 

• Health: life expectancy has increased from 42 years to over 62 since 2001; the maternal 

mortality rate has declined by 80 percent from 1,600 deaths to 327 per 100,000 births; 

and child mortality decreased from 172 to 97 deaths per 1,000 live births. 

• Energy: in 2002, only 6 percent of Afghans had access to reliable electricity. Today 18 

percent do. In addition, USAID assistance has helped put the Afghan national power 

company (DABS) on a path to become fully selt~sustaining. DABS collected $220 

million from the sale of electricity in 2012, an increase of67 percent from 2010. 

• Mobile Technology: in 2002, there were few fixed telephone lines and making calls 

outside of Afghanistan required a satellite phone. Today, the combined phone network 

covers 90 percent of the Afghan population. Eighty-five percent of women have access 

to a mobile phone. The telecommunications sector is Afghanistan's greatest source of 

foreign direct investment, largest remitter of taxes to the government, and biggest licit 

employer, providing jobs for 100,000 Afghans. 

• Women: today, thcre are over 3,000 women-owned business and associations; almost 20 

percent of Afghans enrolled in higher education are women; and women are active 

participants in the Afghan political process, with three female members of the Afghan 

Cabinet, 68 Members of Parliament (of the 249 seats), and three women vice presidential 

candidates. 

USAID Transition Strategy 

Ovcr the last two years USAID has regularly reviewed and adjusted its programs to ensure that 

they advance the strategic objectives of the United States and are achievable and sustainable. 

USAID is coordinating with the Department of State, the Department of Defense, and other 

3 
12 


Insert offset folio 4 here 87460.004

agencies on transition planning for multiple contingencies so we can continue to support overall 

U.S. assistance and national security objectives. 

USAID's transition strategy is three-fold: 

• Maintain and make durable the gains made in health, education, and the empowerment of 

women; 

• Mitigate the economic impact of the drawdown through a robust focus on the agriculture 

sector, private sector development, the operations and maintenance of infrastructure 

investments, and the future potential of the extractives industry; and, 

• Foster improved stability by supporting legitimate and effective Afghan governance, 

including the 2014 presidential election. 

Operationally, USAID has adjusted its implementation model to improve sustainability and meet 

the challenges presented by the transition through: 

• Focusing assistance in Regional Economic Zones (REZs) that cover major population 

centers and promote regional trade and economic opportunities- especially with regional 

markets in Central and South Asia; 

• Developing a multi-tiered oversight strategy to address reduced mobility and decreased 

field staff that, along with other monitoring and evaluation efforts, will continue to ensure 

adequate oversight over projects in the field; 

• Transfonning USAID's approach in Afghanistan to one of mutual accountability that 

incentivizes Afghan reforms by conditioning an increasing percentage of our assistance 

to the government on progress on reforms; and 

• Implementing USAID's 2011 Afghanistan Sustainability Guidance, which emphasizes 

the principles of: (I) increasing Afghan ownership and capacity; (2) contributing to 

stability and confidence, and (3) effective and cost-efficient programming. 

With these parameters in mind, USAID holds biannual portfolio reviews in coordination with the 

U.S. Government interagency and the Afghan Government to review and revise USAID's 

Afghanistan portfolio. For example, as a result of internal USAID reviews and in consultation 

4 
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Insert offset folio 5 here 87460.005

with the Government of Afghanistan in 2012, USAID substantially downscaled a five-year, $32 

million agricultural faculties program found to be duplicative of efforts by another donor. 

In 2013 and 2014, the U.S. has conditioned an increasing amount of civilian assistance on 

Afghan progress on key governance and development reforms. Based on the Tokyo Mutual 

Accountability Framework (TMAF) agreed in July 2012, USAID has established a bilateral 

incentive fund. Incentive funds are released as the Afghan Government meets certain thresholds 

of progress on the key TMAF indicators. These indicators set out needed reforms in five areas: 

elections, sub-national governance, human rights, public finance, and economic growth. 

The program was designed to encourage the most important reforms by linking the reforms to 

additional contributions to the World Bank's Afghan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF). We 

recently disbursed $30 million of the $75 million available in the first year of the bilateral 

incentive program to the ARTF based on Afghan follow through on TMAF benchmarks related 

to planning for the upcoming election and development of improved budgeting procedures. 

The Afghan Government made insufficient progress in other areas and therefore did not qualify 

for an additional $30 million. The final $15 million is still pending a decision based on Afghan 

reforms related to economic growth. We expect to make a decision on that final $15 million by 

the end of April 2014. For this year, we have increased the amount subject to TMAF indicators 

from $75 million to $100 million using Fiscal Year 2013 funds. 

Oversight and Accountability 

USAID places the highest priority on ensuring that American taxpayer funds are used wisely, 

effectively, and for their intended purpose. While Afghanistan presents a number of unique 

challenges, we draw on our extensive experience in monitoring projects in other very 

challenging environments to improve our oversight systems in Afghanistan. 

As the President announced in May 2012, U.S. combat forces will leave Afghanistan by the end 

of2014. As the President said in the State of the Union earlier this year, if the Afghan 

government signs a security agreement that we have negotiated, a small force of Americans 

5 
14 


Insert offset folio 6 here 87460.006

could remain in Afghanistan with NATO allies to carry out two narrow missions: training and 

assisting Afghan forces and counterterrorism operations to pursue any remnants of al-Qaida. 

USAID has been intensively engaged in planning oversight policies and procedures to match the 

full range of contingencies. 

USAID has operated in a number of places around the world in which there is a minimal or no 

U.S. troop presence, and in which there is a mixture of operating environments, from permissive 

to non-permissive, at times within the same country. These places include, among others, 

Colombia, Iraq, and Yemen. USAID has learned hard lessons, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, 

and adapted its project design, its procurements, and its oversight and accountability procedures 

to a wide range of operating environments. 

In the post-2014 environment, Afghanistan will continue to be a difficult place to operate and we 

know we will face challenges in the delivery of development assistance. Looking ahead, we 

believe the main challenges we will face will be: 

• A volatile security environment that is dynamic and hard to predict, in response to which 

we will have to monitor, shift, and adapt our programs as necessary. 

• Oversight and Monitoring: Given the scope of our programming, we will maintain a 

robust multi-tiered monitoring system. 

• Afghan administrative capacity, which has come a long way since 2002 but is still 

lacking. 

In addition to the usual oversight USAID undertakes in every country where it works, 

USAID's Accountable Assistance for Afghanistan initiative (known as A3) focuses on four 

areas: 

I. Award Mechanisms - We rely less on large agreements and have increased the number 

of smaller and more flexible agreements. We are also utilizing assistance awards that 

provide the most visibility on project costs, such as cost-reimbursable contracts and 

limiting layers of subcontracts to two. 

6 
15 


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2. Partner Vetting - The USAID Mission established a Vetting Support Unit in February 

2011. The unit conducts checks on non-U.S. companies and non-U.S. key individuals for 

prime contractors, sub-contractors, grant recipients and sub-grantees to determine whether 

or not they are associated with known malign entities or individuals. We have kept $49.3 

million from being awarded to those who did not meet our vetting requirements, as a 

result of our vetting process. 

3. Financial Controls - We are enhancing controls on project funds, such as using electronic 

funds transfers in lieu of cash payments, using independent financial monitors to verify 

appropriate usage of funds, ensuring close review of recipients' claims prior to payment, 

and performing audits oflocally incurred cost. 

4. Project Oversight - USAID uses a multi-tiered monitoring approach that includes, as 

appropriate, independent monitoring contractors; observation by U.S. Government staff; 

reporting by implementing partners, local non-governmental organizations and civil 

society; and use of technological tools, such as time- and date-stamped photos. By using 

multiple sources of monitoring data, USAID can compare information received from 

separate sources to ensure the greatest degree of oversight possible. 

USAID will terminate or redesign projects, or specific activities, if the Agency determines that 

adequate oversight is not possible or adequate development progress is not being made. In 

designing the Afghanistan monitoring strategy, USAID incorporated lessons learned from its use 

of third-party independcnt monitoring in challenging environments across the world, including 

Colombia, Iraq, Pakistan, and South Sudan, as well as from the USAID Office of Inspector 

General (OIG), the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), and 

GAO audits, as well as public feedback. 

USAID has also developed a new unit at the Mission in Afghanistan, the Implementation 

Support Team, which is responsible for providing an additional layer of critical review and 

analysis for the many streams of monitoring information and for providing USAID leadership 

with alternative courses of action for addressing challenges with project implementation. In 

7 
16 


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addition, USAID is continuing its close coordination with other donors to share best practices 

and expertise on monitoring. 

Direct Assistance 

Government-to-government or "direct" assistance is intended to build the Afghan 

government's ability to sustain the investments and gains that have been made over the last 

twelve years, and allow the U.S. to transition out ofa civilian assistance program. USAID is 

intensely conscious of the trust that has been placed with us to safeguard taxpayer funds while 

implementing development programs in support of U.S. national security interests. The Agency 

has learned from its experience with "direct" assistance in Afghanistan and in similar countries 

around the world, and has applied best practices to design and implement rigorous risk 

mitigation measures for direct assistance. It also continues to work internally and with its 

auditors to refine oversight policies and procedures. 

USAID has a rigorous system of oversight for its direct assistance programming with the Afghan 

government. This means that USAID conducts assessments to identify the strengths and 

weaknesses of each ministry for which a direct assistance project is being contemplated. To 

date, USAID has conducted sixteen ministry assessments, but has decided to limit its direct 

assistance to seven ministries, subject to stringent safeguards. Different ministries have different 

strenl.,>1hs and weaknesses, and different programs are funded in different ways. However, for all 

seven of them we have these stringent safeguards in place. As noted, we begin with a review ofa 

ministry's basic systems followed by an internal assessment of the risks inherent in the proposed 

program and build our mitigating measures and safeguards accordingly. At the same time, with 

an eye towards building Afghan systems that are able to prevent corruption and fraud, waste, or 

abuse on their own, we are simultaneously building the capacities of these ministries. 

For direct assistance, USAID utilizes multiple levels of protection to mitigate risks before 

disbursing any funds. These measures may include, but are not limited to: 

• requiring the establishment of a non-commingled, separate bank account for each project 

with USAID; 

• disbursement offunds only after USAID has verified that the ministry has achieved a 

performance milestone or USAID has verified accrued costs; 

8 
17 


Insert offset folio 9 here 87460.009

• an annual audit by a USAID OIG-approved firm; 

• substantial involvement and oversight by USAID staff in procurement processes; 

• independent management, monitoring and evaluation of services; and 

• technical assistance through other projects to increase the capacity of ministries while 

addressing any vulnerabilities or weaknesses identified in the assessments. 

All direct assistance requires compliance with USAID accountability and oversight procedures, 

including site visits. Ministries are required to fully comply with the mitigation measures prior 

to and throughout the disbursement process. If Afghan ministries fail to adhere to these 

measures, the agreements are subject to immediate suspension or termination. 

For example, USAID has worked closely with the Ministry of Education to assess its financial 

management systems, implement extensive mitigation measures for the risks these assessments 

identified, and audit their progress and monitor results. USAID negotiated a stringent series of 

preconditions and financial controls pursuant to the launch of a $27 million textbook printing 

program, part of the Basic Education, Literacy, and Technical Vocational Education and 

Training Project. The specific steps USAID required to mitigate these risks included use of a 

non-commingled separate bank account from which all project disbursements are to be 

accounted for; an annual audit including quarterly audit testing of all project disbursements 

under the agreement by an OIG-approved certified public accounting firm; and USAID 

involvement and mandatory clearance ofthe textbook procurement cycle for each separate 

procurement undertaken under the agreement. USAID subsequently obligated a total of$27 

million towards the agreement, and to date $18.8 million has been disbursed. 

Finally, audits provide useful oversight and discipline, and complement and reinforce USAID's 

own efforts to ensure U.S. tax dollars are used effectively and efficiently. There are currently 

over 100 on-going audits of US AID programs in Afghanistan. In fiscal year 2013, the GAO, 

USAID OIG, and the SIGAR completed over 65 financial and program audits in Afghanistan. 

Oversight is a process that requires continual re-examination and the ability to adjust to new 

circumstances as they arise. Although there are inherent risks in doing business in a country like 

9 
18 


Insert offset folio 10 here 87460.010

Afghanistan, we work hard to ensure taxpayer dollars are adequately protected while carrying 

out a vital component of the U.S. Government's national security policy. 

Conclusion 

USAlD always keeps in mind the enormous sacrifices made by Americans to build a secure and 

stable Afghanistan, and we fully understand the need for constant vigilance, particularly during 

this delicate transition period. Whether in the military, as a government civilian, or as an 

implementing partner, I know the risks and the sacrifices these individuals and their families 

have taken and sincerely thank them for their service. We are under no illusions about the 

challenges we face in Afghanistan. Every day our staff and our partners are under threat. Since 

2001,434 people working for USAlD partner organizations in Afghanistan have been killed and 

another 768 wounded. 

Problems of limited capacity and corruption certainly exist in Afghanistan, just as they do in 

many places in which USAlD operates, and they will continue to be a challenge. However, these 

problems are not reasons to abandon our vital national security interests. Instead, they are 

reasons for our continued exercising of care and diligence in our work. It is an honor to be able 

to share with you today a small glimpse of what USAID is doing in that regard. I look forward 

to answering any questions that you may have. 

10 
19 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you, Mr. Sampler. 

We now recognize Mr. Johnson for five minutes. 

STATEMENT OF CHARLES M. JOHNSON, JR. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Chaffetz, 

Ranking Member Tierney, members of the subcommittee, I am 

pleased to be here today on behalf of the GAO to discuss three 

issues related to USAID’s efforts in Afghanistan that we outlined 

in our most recent Afghanistan key issues and contingency contracting reports. These issues are: the continued need for oversight 

and accountability, the need for continued monitoring and evaluation of projects, and the importance of planning in advance for the 

withdrawal of combat troops. 

Before I delve into these issues, it is important to point out that 

various factors, such as the security environment, the prevalence of 

corruption, which Mr. Sampler pointed out, and the limited capacity of the Afghanistan government, have challenged U.S. efforts. 

Now, with respect to oversight and accountability of funds, we 

have found that USAID did not always conduct pre-award risk assessments to identify and mitigate against risks of providing direct 

assistance to Afghan ministries. While USAID took some steps 

since our report to complete risk assessments, recent inspector general reporting indicates that USAID may not have mitigated for all 

identified risks. 

We also reported that USAID generally rely on multilateral organizations to ensure accountability over direct assistance provided 

through the Afghan Reconstruction Trust Fund. However, we found 

that USAID had not consistently complied with its risk assessment 

policies in awarding funds to the trust fund. In following up on our 

recommendation for action, we learned that USAID did take steps 

later in awarding additional funds to the Trust Fund to conduct 

pre-award risk assessments. 

With respect to monitoring and evaluation, which we also point 

out is a very important control that needs to be put in place, while 

USAID has taken steps to improve the management of its programs, various factors continue to challenge its ability to monitor 

program effectiveness. These factors include inconsistencies in 

USAID’s application of its performance management procedures, 

shortfalls in maintaining institutional knowledge, and missed opportunities to enhance oversight and management of contractors. 

Concerning application of performance management procedures, 

we previously noted that USAID did not always follow its performance management procedures which, among other things, call for 

USAID to collect, analyze, and interpret performance data. While 

USAID took action in response to our recommendation, once again 

results of recent oversight have raised concerns about its continued 

efforts. 

Concerning institutional knowledge, USAID has historically 

faced obstacles in this area. Frequent staff turnovers have made it 

more difficult for USAID to analyze and interpret performance 

data. Further, according a recent USAID report, the majority of the 

foreign service national staff in Afghanistan have applied for special immigrant visas to the United States, potentially leaving the 

agency at risk of losing key staff with institutional knowledge. 

20 

Concerning oversight and management of contractors, we recently reported that USAID had identified increasing performance 

reviews as one of its highest priorities with respect to performance 

reviews of their contractors. We also reported that USAID had established a working group to, among other things, develop a compendium of best practices and lessons learned for monitoring 

projects in a non-permissive environment. USAID, however, missed 

opportunities to leverage institutional knowledge by not assessing 

if the mission level policies and procedures should be considered 

agency-wide. In response to our recommendation, USAID has noted 

that it will create a working group to gather and share lessons 

learned. 

Finally, with respect to planning for future development efforts 

in Afghanistan, the USAID’s ability to conduct mission and monitor 

its projects in Afghanistan is likely to be challenged by the planned 

withdrawal of combat troops. Additionally, finalizing plans for the 

post-combat environment is complicated by the absence of a signed 

bilateral security agreement. As combat troops continue to withdraw from Afghanistan, USAID’s opportunities to directly monitor 

programs in certain parts of Afghanistan may be challenged, given 

that the military presence helped USAID gain access to less secure 

areas. As such, USAID will need to plan for how it will continue 

monitoring its projects in what is just as likely to be and remain 

a non-permissive environment. 

In closing, as the United States plans for the withdrawal of combat troops and transition to a civilian-led presence, it is important 

to have safeguards in place to help ensure sustainment of our 

gains. This will require continued oversight and accountability of 

U.S. funds, consistent application of USAID’s monitoring evaluation policies, planning for challenges that are likely to result from 

the withdrawal of combat troops. Undertaking these steps, we believe, may help to better ensure accountability and could lessen the 

likelihood of waste, fraud, and abuse. 

Mr. Chairman, ranking member, members of the subcommittee, 

once again I thank you for the opportunity to testify. This concludes my opening statement. I would be happy to take any questions for the record. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Johnson follows:] 

21 


Insert offset folio 11 here 87460.011

For Release on Delivery 

Expected at 1 :30 p.m. EDT 

Thursday, March 13, 2014 

GAO·14·448T 

United States Government Accountability Office 

Testimony 

Before the Subcommittee on National 

Security, Committee on Oversight and 

Government Reform, House of 

Representatives 

AFGHANISTAN 

Key Oversight Issues for 

USAID Development Efforts 

Statement of Charles Michael Johnson, Jr. 

Director, International Affairs and Trade 
22 


Insert offset folio 12 here 87460.012

Highllghts of GAO-14-44BT, a testimony 

before U1e subcommittee on Nationa! Security, 

Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, House of Representatives 

Why GAO Did This Study 

The u.s. government has been 

engaged in efforts in Afghanistah since 

declaring a global ,war on terrorism that 

targeted 31 QBeda, its affiliates, and 

other violent extremists. The U.S. effort 

has invOlved a whole of government 

approach to disrupt, dismantie, and 

defeat al Qaeda and its affiliates and 

strengthen Afghanistan so that it can 

never again be a haven for terrorists, 

This approach includes USAID's 

development assistance and 

reconstruction efforts, which to date 

have invested over $15 billion in 

Afghanistan since 2002. 

To assist Congress in its ~Ver$i9ht, 

GAO has Issued over 50 products in 

the past 5 years focusing on U.S. 

efforts in Afghanistan. This testimony 

summarizes the findings from those 

products related to USAID efforts in 

Afghanistan and discusses: (1) levels 

of U.S. direct assistance and need for 

continued oversight, (2) the importance 

of routine rt:lonitoring ahd evaluation of 

USAID projects ih Afghanistan, and (3) 

the need for mitigatlon planning for 

how USAID will continue to.operate in 

Afghanistan after the WIThdrawal of 

U.S. combatlmops. 

What GAO Recommends 

GAO is not making new 

recommendations but has made 

numerous recommendations in prior 

reports aimed at improving USAID's 

oversight an<! accountability of U.S. 

assistance to Afghanistan.USAID has 

generally concurred with Ihese 

recommendations and has,taken or 

plans I? take steps to address them. 

View GAO~ t4·448T. For more infOrmation, 

contact Charles M!chael JohnsOn, Jr., at (202) 

512·7331orJohnsoncm@gao,gov 

AFGHANISTAN 

Key Oversight Issues for USAiD Development Efforts 

What GAO Found 

In 2010, the United States pledged to provide at least 50 percent of its 

development aid directly through the Afghan government budget within 2 years. 

This direct assistance is intended to help develop the capacity of Afghan 

government ministries to manage programs and funds. Using bilateral 

agreements and multilateral trust funds, the United States more than tripled its 

direct assistance awards to Afghanistan in the first year of the pledge, going from 

over $470 million in fiscal year 2009 to over $1.4 billion in fiscal year 2010. The 

U.S. Agency for International Development's (USAID) most current reporting 

shows that for fiscal year 2012 the agency provided over $800 million in mission 

funds through direct assistance. In 2013, GAO reported that while USAID had 

established and with various financial and other controls in its 

direct assistance agreements, had not always assessed the risks in providing 

direct assistance before awarding funds. USAID has taken steps in response to 

GAO's recommendations to help ensure the accountability of direct assistance 

funds provided to the Afghan government. Recently, the Special Inspector 

General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) reported that, USAID 

determined that seven ministries were unable to manage direct assistance funds 

without a risk mitigation However, SIGAR reported that USAID 

approved assistance for the but did not mitigate for all identified risks. 

GAO has previously reported on systemic weaknesses in USAID's monitoring 

and evaluation of programs carried out by its implementing partners in 

Afghanistan. For example, although USAIO collected progress reports from 

implementing partners for agriculture and water projects. it did not always 

analyze and interpret data to, among other things. inform future decisions. 

USAID has undertaken some efforts to improve its monitoring and evaluation of 

the billions of dollars invested towards development projects in Afghanistan. 

GAO and other oversight agencies, however, have highlighted gaps that show 

USAIO continued to inconsistently apply performance management procedures. 

falls short in maintaining institutional knowledge, and needs to improve oversight 

of contractors. 

USAIO's ability to conduct its mission and the challenges it has faced in providing 

oversight and monitoring of its development projects in Afghanistan are likely to 

be exacerbated by the planned withdrawal of U.S. and coalition combat troops 

from Afghanistan at the end of 2014. The United States is currently transitioning 

from counterinsurgency and stability operations toward more traditional 

diplomatic and development activities. As U.S. combat troops withdraw from 

Afghanistan, provincial reconstruction teams will continue to decline in number, 

thus challenging USAIO's opportunities to monitor and evaluate programs 

in certain parts of Afghanistan. To prepare possible lack of USAID 

personnel in the field, USAIO has undertaken various planning efforts to mitigate 

against potential challenges. For example, USAID is planning to implement a 

remote program that will use contractors to verify activities that 

have completed. As the United States plans for the 

and the transition from an integrated civilian and 

military effort to a presence, GAO believes it is important to have 

safeguards in place to help ensure sustainment of the gains made by U.S. and 

coalitIon investments. 

_____________ United States Government Accountability Office 
23 


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Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member Tierney, and Members of the 

Subcommittee: 

I am pleased to be here to discuss key issues relating to the U.S. Agency 

for International Development's (USAID) efforts in Afghanistan. As this 

subcommittee is aware, the U.S. government has been engaged in a 

number of efforts in Afghanistan since declaring, after 9/11, a global war 

on terrorism that targets al Oaeda, its affiliates, and other violent 

extremists, including groups operating along the Afghanistan/Pakistan 

border and in the tribal areas of Pakistan. U.S. efforts have focused on a 

whole of government approach that calls for the use of all elements of 

national power to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Oaeda and its affiliates 

and strengthen Afghanistan so that it can never again be a haven for 

terrorists. This approach includes USAID's development assistance and 

reconstruction efforts, which to date have invested over $15 billion in U.S. 

taxpayers' funds since 2002 in Afghanistan. 

Today I would like to highlight three issues relating to USAID's efforts in 

Afghanistan that were outlined in our most recent key issues report 

provided to the 113th Congress, the Administration, and U.S. agencies, 

including USAID' These issues are: 

First, the continued need for oversight and accountability of U.S. 

funds, including those USAID has provided as a part of U.S. efforts to 

build the capacity of the Afghan government: 

second, the importance of routine monitoring and evaluation of USAID 

development projects to guide and ensure the most efficient and 

effective use of U.S. funds: and 

third, the need for mitigation planning for how USAID will continue to 

operate under a civilian-led presence following the scheduled 

withdrawal of U.S and coalition combat troops from Afghanistan. 

The key issues report summarizes the work we have reported on in over 

50 issued products in the past 5 years related to U.S. efforts in 

1 GAO, Afghanistan. Key Oversight Issues, GAO-13-218SP (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 11, 

2013) and GAO, Contingency Contracting: State and USAID Made Progress Assessing 

and Implementing Changes, but Furlher Actions Needed, GAO~14-229 (Washington, D,C 

Feb, 14, 2014) for updated work regarding oversight of contracts in Afghanistan. 

Page 1 
24 


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Background: 

Challenges to 

USAID's Efforts in 

Afghanistan 

Afghanistan. Detailed information on the scope and methodology for our 

prior work can be found in the reports we have cited throughout this 

statement. We conducted the work that this statement is based on in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 

Those standards require that we plan and perform the audits to obtain 

sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 

findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that 

the evidence obtained provided a reasonable basis for our findings and 

conclusions based on our audit objectives. 

USAID has undertaken various programs and activities in support of the 

United States' and coalition partners' goals to reconstruct Afghanistan 

and build the country's institutional capacity. These programs and 

activities have focused on, among other things, (1) enhancing and 

developing Afghanistan's economy-notably Afghanistan's agricultural, 

water sectors, energy, and transportation; and (2) building Afghanistan's 

institutional capacity to govern; provide economic livelihood to its people; 

and address longstanding issues of corruption. USAID plays a vital role in 

the United States' whole of government approach towards its strategiC 

goals for Afghanistan-to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda and its 

affiliates and strengthen Afghanistan so that it can never again be a 

haven for terrorists. However, the dangerous security environment, 

prevalence of corruption, and limited capacity of the Afghan government, 

continue to threaten the achievement of U.S. goals: 

Dangerous security environment. Afghanistan's security environment 

continues to challenge the Afghan government's and international 

community's efforts. In our 2013 key issues report, we noted that in 

December 2009 the U.S. President, recognizing that the situation in 

Afghanistan had become more grave, announced his decision to 

deploy additional troops to Afghanistan to disrupt and defeat 

extremists2 The security situation in Afghanistan, as measured by 

enemy-initiated attacks on U.S. and coalition forces, Afghan security 

forces, and non-combatants, while declining recently, has remained 

relatively high compared to the number of daily enemy-initiated 

attacks before the surge of U.S. combat forces. 

GAO-13.21BS;P Enclosure I. 

Page 2 GAO-14-448T 
25 


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Oversight and 

Accountability of U.S. 

Funds to Support 

Afghanistan 

Prevalence of corruption in Afghanistan. Corruption in Afghanistan 

continues to undermine security and Afghan citizens' belief in their 

government, and has raised concerns about the effective and efficient 

use of U.S. reconstruction dollars. Afghanistan is ranked at the bottom 

ofTransparency International's 2013 Corruption Perception Index of 

countries worldwide' The United States and Afghanistan have 

undertaken various efforts to attempt to address the challenges 

associated with corruption in the country4 

Limited Afghan capacity. While we have reported that the Afghan 

government has increased its generation of revenue, it remains 

heavily reliant on the United States and other international donors to 

fund its public expenditures and continued reconstruction efforts.5 The 

United States continues to undertake efforts to improve Afghanistan's 

ministerial and public financial management capacity to develop a 

budget, expend funds, and increase accountability and transparency. 

These challenges are likely to play an even larger role in USAID's efforts 

within Afghanistan as U.S. and international combat forces continue to 

withdraw. 

In 2010, the United States pledged to provide at least 50 percent of its 

development aid through the Afghan government budget within 2 years! 

Such direct assistance is intended to help develop the capacity of Afghan 

government ministries to manage programs and funds, which are used for 

a range of government expenses and activities, including operating costs, 

salaries, development programs, and infrastructure projects. Using 

bilateral agreements and multilateral trust funds, the United States more 

than tripled its direct assistance awards to Afghanistan in the first year of 

International. Corruption Perceptions Index 2013. (Berlin, Germany: Dec. 

4 In the fall of 201 0, USAID initiated an Accountable Assistance fOf Afghanistan (A3) 

report that provides detailed research into how best to protect USAID development funds 

from being diverted from their Intended use. The results of this research are 31 

recommendations in fOUf categories for the USAID mission in Afghanistan to implement: 

award mechanisms; vetting; finanCial controls; and project oversight 

5 GAO-13-218SP, Enclosure V. 

6 USAID has established a 5~year goal of providing 30 percent of mission funds worldwide 

for direct aSSistance by 2015. 

Page 3 GAO-14044ST 
26 


Insert offset folio 16 here 87460.016

the pledge (fiscal year 2010), from over million in fiscal year 2009 to 

over $1.4 billion in fiscal year 2010. The most recently available data from 

USAID reports that for fiscal year 2012 the agency provided over $800 

million in mission funds through direct assistance awards.' 

To provide a higher level of accountability for U.S. and international 

assistance funds, the Afghan government and the international 

community agreed at the Tokyo Conference in 2012' to implement 

accountability mechanisms including the Mutual Accountability 

Framework, which was designed to ensure that the Afghan government is 

achieving governance and development goals. Going forward, the Afghan 

government and the international community are expected to monitor 

performance in five major areas of governance and development and 

determine a time line for achieving the framework's goals. Additionally, 

following the Tokyo Conference, the Afghan President presented an 

anticorruption decree enumerating specific actions that the Afghan 

government will take to improve governance and the rule of law. For fiscal 

year 2012, Congress conditioned the availability of funds for direct 

assistance to Afghanistan on a detailed notification to Congress' 

concerning efforts to protect direct assistance funds from waste, fraud, 

and abuse.'o 

In fiscal year 2011, Congress required that the Secretary of State certify 

that Afghan ministries have been assessed and considered qualified to 

manage such funds." We noted in our 2013 key issues report that while 

, At the time of this testimony, fiscal year 2013 data had not yet been completely validated 

by USAtD and thus were not available. According to USAID officialS, the agency will 

publish fiscal year 2013 data in spring 2014. 

B The United States and over 70 partners met in Tokyo, Japan from July 7-9, 2012 to 

underllne continued support for Afghanistan's efforts to strengthen itself and provide a 

more peaceful, secure, and prosperous future for its people. 

'Pub. L. No. 112-74, Div.l. § 7031(a). 

10 For example, the 2012 limitation on direct assistance specified that funds may be made 

available for direct assistance "only jf ... each implementing agency or ministry to receive 

assistance has been assessed and is considered to have the systems required to manage 

such assistance and any identified vulnerabilities or weaknesses of such agency or 

ministry have been addressed." Furthermore, the limitation states that funds be made 

available only if "effective monitoring and evaluation systems are in place to ensure that 

such aSSistance is used for its intended purposes and no level of acceptable fraud is 

assumed: See Pub. L. No. 112-74. Div.!' § 7031(a)(1). 

"Pub. L. No. 112-10. Div. B. § 2121(b). 

Page 4 GAO-14-448T 
27 


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USAID had established and generally complied with various financial and 

other controls in its direct assistance agreements (such as requiring 

Afghan ministries to maintain separate bank accounts and records 

subject to audit) in 2011, it had not always assessed the risks in providing 

direct assistance before awarding funds.'2 For example, USAID had not 

completed pre-award risk assessments in two of the eight cases of 

bilateral assistance we identified, despite the USAID administrator's prior 

commitment to Congress that the agency would not proceed with direct 

assistance to an Afghan public institution before assessing its capabilities. 

USAID took steps to respond to our recommendations to address these 

issues, including issuing new agency policies on risk assessments. 

These policies require pre-award risk assessments for all bilateral direct 

assistance awards, periodic reassessment, and risk mitigation measures, 

as appropriate. USAID has since awarded millions of dollars in direct 

assistance funds to Afghan government entities and since our 2011 

review completed risk assessments prior to awarding the funds in at least 

two cases in compliance with its updated policies. The Special Inspector 

General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR), however, recently reported 

that although USAID determined that seven Afghan ministries were 

unable to manage direct assistance funds without a risk mitigation 

strategy in place and that the mission would not award direct assistance 

to them "under normal circumstances"; USAID approved direct assistance 

for these ministries without mitigating for all identified risks." USAID 

commented to SIGAR's report that the mission had taken steps to 

mitigate the risks they identified. 

We also highlighted in a previous report that USAID generally relies on 

the World Bank and the United Nations Development Program to ensure 

accountability over U.S. direct assistance provided multilaterally through 

the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF) and the Law and 

Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan, but we found that USAID had not 

consistently complied with its risk assessment policies in awarding funds 

to ARTF.'4 For example, USAID did not conduct a risk assessment before 

GA0-1,3-;'1R:SP Enclosure VI. 

13 SIGAR, Direct Assistance: USAID Has Taken Positive Action to Assess Afghan 

Ministn'es' Ability to Manage Donor Funds, but Concerns Rema;n, SIGAR-14-32-AR 

(Arlington, Va: Jan. 30. 2014) 

14 GAO, Afghanistan: Actions Needed to Improve Accountability of U S. Assistance to 

Afghanistan Govemment, GAO-"-7'0 (Washington, D.C.: July 20,2011). 

Page 5 GAO~14""'48T 
28 


Insert offset folio 18 here 87460.018

Monitoring and 

Evaluation of USAID 

Development Projects 

awarding an additional $1.3 billion to ARTF and it was determined that 

USAID had not conducted pre-award risk assessments in the last 12 

instances in which it awarded funds during the period 2005 to 2010. 

USAID has since ensured adherence with its policies for assessing risks 

associated with multilateral trust funds in awarding funds to ARTF. In 

accordance with its policies for awarding funds to public international 

organizations, in March 2012, USAID awarded about $371 million to 

ARTF and conducted a risk assessment prior to awarding the funds. 

USAID has undertaken some efforts to improve its management of the 

billions of dollars provided to U.S. development programs in Afghanistan, 

but various factors, such as inconsistencies in its application of 

performance management procedures, shortfalls in maintaining 

institutional knowledge, and needed improvements related to the 

oversight and management of contractors, may continue to challenge 

USAID's ability to monitor and evaluate program effectiveness. 

With respect to inconsistencies in its application of performance 

management procedures, in our 2013 key issues report, we noted that 

USAID did not consistently follow its established performance 

management and evaluation procedures with regard to its agriculture and 

water sector projects." For example, only two of the seven USAID-funded 

agricultural programs included in our related review had targets for all of 

their performance indicators. In response to our recommendations to 

improve oversight and monitoring, USAID took several steps, including 

issuing a new performance monitoring plan and approving its 

implementing partners' performance targets. However, questions 

concerning USAID's oversight have endured. In June 2013, SIGAR 

reported that poor coordination, waste, and mismanagement for an 

agriculture project were allowed to occur because USAID did not exercise 

effective oversight of its implementing partner." In addition, the USAID 

15 GAO.13-218SP, Enclosure VII. See also GAO, Afghanistan Development: 

Enhancements to Performance Management and Evaluation Efforts Could Improve 

USA/D's Agriculture Programs, GAO-10-368 (Washington, D.C.: July 14, 2010); and 

Afghanistan Development: U. S. Efforts to Support Afghan Water Sector Increasing, but 

Improvements Needed in Planning and Coordination, GA0-11-138 (Washington, D.C.: 

Nov. 15, 2010) 

16 SIGAR, Southern Regional Agricultural Development Program Had Poor Coordination, 

Waste, and Mismanagement. SIGAR Alert 13-2 (Arlington, Va: June 27, 2013). 

Page 6 
29 


Insert offset folio 19 here 87460.019

Mission in Afghanistan, in its Fiscal Year 2013 Federal Managers' 

Financial Integrity Act of 1982 Annual Certification, noted the inadequacy 

of monitoring program/project implementation by designated USAID staff 

for the tenth year in a row (since fiscal year 2003). 

We also previously reported that while USAID had conducted an 

evaluation, as required by USAID's policy, covering three of the eight 

agriculture programs we reviewed, the extent to which USAID used the 

evaluation to enhance current or future programs was unclear.17 In 

addition, although USAID collected progress reports from implementing 

partners for agriculture and water projects, it did not always analyze and 

interpret the data to further institutional learning, inform current programs, 

and shape future planning. We made several recommendations to 

address these gaps, which USAID has implemented. 

With respect to institutional knowledge, USAID has also historically faced 

obstacles in Afghanistan. Frequent staff rotations and high turnover have 

made it difficult for USAID to fully analyze and interpret performance data 

for its programs. In its most recent annual certification required by the 

Federal Manager's Financial Integrity Act of 1982, USAID identified a 

significant deficiency related to its foreign service nationals. According to 

the report, the majority of foreign service nationals in Afghanistan have 

applied for special immigrant visas to the United States, leaving the 

agency at risk of losing a majority of that staff, further complicating the 

challenges of the high rotation rate among U.S. personnel at the 

embassy. USAID has attempted to address some of these issues by 

requiring program monitoring officials in Afghanistan to maintain program 

documentation in electronic files on a shared drive for use by current and 

incoming staff. 

With respect to oversight and management of contractors in Afghanistan, 

in February 2014, we reported that USAID identified needed 

improvements.'• For example: 

USAID identified increaSing the submission of contractor performance 

evaluations as one of the agency's highest acquisition priorities. To do 

18 GAO-14-229. 

Page 7 GAO-140448T 
30 


Insert offset folio 20 here 87460.020

Planning for Future 

Development Efforts 

in Afghanistan 

so, USAID established quarterly targets for reporting in the contractor 

past performance database to measure its progress. 

USAID also established a nonpermissive environment" working 

group in October 2013 to develop a compendium of best practices 

and lessons learned for implementing and monitoring projects in 

nonpermissive environments; an operations security toolkit that will 

include tools for enhanced monitoring, and possibly a field information 

technology support package; and a targeted set of training and 

learning tools that focus on how USAID prepares staff for managing 

risks inherent in working in overseas contingency environments, 

However, we found that USAID did not assess whether the procedures 

and practices created by the missions or offices that operate in 

contingency environments, such as Afghanistan, should be reflected in 

agency-wide policy or guidance. As a result, USAID may have missed 

opportunities to leverage its institutional knowledge, and we 

recommended that USAID further assess contingency contracting related 

procedures and practices. In response to our recommendation, USAID 

plans to create a supplementary group to its non permissive environment 

working group that will reach out to missions, offices, and contracting 

personnel with contingency operations experience to collect and 

disseminate a set of best practices for contracting in support of 

contingency operations and other potentially dangerous or uncertain 

environments. These actions afford USAID another opportunity to 

improve contractor oversight and better leverage its institutional 

knowledge to improve program monitoring and evaluation efforts. 

USAID's ability to conduct its mission and the challenges it has faced in 

providing oversight and monitoring of its development projects in 

Afghanistan are likely to be exacerbated by the planned withdrawal of 

U.S. and coalition combat troops from Afghanistan. Plans for the United 

States' post-combat presence in Afghanistan, scheduled to begin in 

January 2015, have been developed by the Departments of State (State) 

and Defense (DOD) and are currently being reviewed by the U.S, 

National Security Council Staff. According to U.S, strategic documents, 

19 USAID officials have also developed a working definition of nonpermisslve 

environment-any environment in which USAIO operates where security concerns are 

elevated or its ability to implement or monitor programs is limited. 

PageS GAO·14-448T 
31 


Insert offset folio 21 here 87460.021

the United States is transitioning from counterinsurgency and stability 

operations toward more traditional diplomatic and development activities, 

Planning is complicated, however, by the absence of a finalized Bilateral 

Security Agreement between the United States and Afghanistan, which is 

needed if the United States is to maintain a military presence in the 

country, The number and role of remaining military personnel have not 

yet been determined by the Administration, State has noted that it is 

concurrently planning for a possible continued U,S, military presence and 

for a situation in which no military troops remain after the deadline of 

December 31,2014, 

In February 2012, we reported that the U,S, civilian presence in 

Afghanistan and the deployment of civilians to Afghan provinces and 

districts were crucial to U.S, efforts to build the capacity of the Afghan 

government to provide essential services to its people with limited 

international sUpport,20 Provincial reconstruction teams, led and secured 

by the U,S, military and coalition members, have helped to enable USAID 

to access less secure regions of Afghanistan, As U,S, combat troops 

continue to withdraw from Afghanistan, provincial reconstruction teams 

will continue to decline in number, thus challenging USAID's opportunities 

to directly monitor and evaluate programs in certain parts of Afghanistan, 

While USAID, as an agency, has experience working in insecure 

environments in other parts of the world, alternative oversight 

mechanisms may need to be in place and adhered to so that monitoring 

and evaluation of projects continue as U.S, combat troops withdraw from 

Afghanistan, In February 2014, we reported that USAID officials have 

acknowledged that they may be challenged to adequately monitor project 

progress as the U,S, military presence draws down, but are taking steps 

to counter diminished access to development projects in insecure 

environments after U,S, combat troops withdraw," To prepare for the 

possible lack of USAID personnel in the field, the agency is planning to 

implement a remote monitoring program in Afghanistan that will use 

contractors to verify activities that implementing partners have completed, 

This initiative will rely on various monitoring methods, including third-party 

monitors, Global Positioning System tracking, photography, and data 

Afghanistan: Improvements Needed to Strengthen Management of U. S. Civilian 

Presence, GAO-12-285 (Washington, D,C.: Feb. 27, 2012). 

21 GAO-14-229, 

Page 9 GAO·14-448T 
32 


Insert offset folio 22 here 87460.022

collections with mobile devices. To implement this initiative, USAID 

issued a draft request for proposals in May 2013 publicizing its intent to 

negotiate as many as three contracts. According to USAID officials, as of 

the first quarter of fiscal year 2014, the agency was in the process of 

finalizing the request for proposals. 

In closing, as the United States plans for the withdrawal of its combat 

troops and the transition from an integrated civilian and military effort to a 

civilian-led presence, it is important to have safeguards in place to help 

ensure sustainment of the gains made by U.S. and coalition investments. 

These include taking steps to ensure that the billions of dollars spent in 

Afghanistan do not become subject to terrorist control or a cullure of 

corruption that the Afghan government, the United States, and its 

coalition partners have worked to prevent. As we, and others, have 

highlighted, this requires: 

the continued U.S. agency oversight and accountability of U.S. funds, 

including those invested as part of USAID's mission in Afghanistan; 

ensuring that USAID consistently implements its monitoring and 

evaluation policies for managing its programs in Afghanistan; and 

the ability to mitigate potential challenges that are likely to result from 

the withdrawal of U.S. and coalition combat forces. 

These steps may help to better ensure that the United States has 

accountability over the substantial funds that it has already invested and 

could be valuable to guiding future U.S. and USAID efforts in Afghanistan, 

while also serving as valuable lessons learned for future U.S. efforts. In 

the absence of consistent application of its performance management 

and evaluation procedures, USAID's programs are more vulnerable to 

corruption, waste, fraud, and abuse. 

Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member Tierney, and Members of the 

Subcommittee, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be 

pleased to answer any questions that you may have at this time, 

Page 10 
33 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. Thank you both. 

I now recognize myself for five minutes. 

I want to start, Mr. Sampler, with my understanding is we have about $20 billion that is yet to be disbursed in Afghanistan. Yet, 

I am looking at this SIGAR report, this is the Special Inspector 

General for Afghan Reconstruction. We refer to it as SIGAR. Here 

is the concern. I have general concerns overall about USAID’s forward program. It is laudable to set goals, but I really have deep 

concerns about this. 

And let me just read part of this assessment that came out in 

January of 2014. Ernst & Young and KPMG came in and did assessments. All of the 16 ministries assessed ‘‘were unable to manage and account for funds unless they implemented recommendations.’’ There were 696 recommendations that were made, and yet 

here I am finding that SIGAR found that USAID required that 

ministries only implement 24 of the 333 recommended risk mitigation measures prior to receiving funds. 

The report says, ‘‘Although USAID–Afghanistan concluded in 

each of the 7 risk reviews that the ministry was unable to manage 

direct assistance funds without a risk mitigation strategy in place 

and that the mission would not award direct assistance to the ministry ’under normal circumstances’, USAID–Afghanistan signed the 

agreements with each of the reviewed ministries to approve direct 

assistance programs.’’ 

As the report points out, the U.S. Government has committed to 

providing at least 50 percent of its developmental aid to Afghanistan through on-budget assistance to the Afghan government. We 

are talking about 50 percent of $20 billion. And yet none of the 

ministries could even pass the basic test by the outside groups that 

you cited in your opening statement as coming in and doing the 

audit. Why are we doing this? That was a question, yes. 

Mr. SAMPLER. Congressman, thank you. We are in Afghanistan 

because we were attacked from Afghanistan. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. No, no, no, no, no. 

Mr. SAMPLER. We are not doing this because—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Wait, wait, wait. We don’t need the history of 

why we are there. 

Mr. SAMPLER. Right. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. The reality is we are there. We have invested 

lives. Americans have given their lives. The last thing we want to 

do is just abandon and forget. We have invested a lot there. I am 

concerned about giving tens of billions of dollars to the most corrupt foreign country that there is. This is the most corrupt nation 

on the face of the planet and we are going to give them tens of billions of dollars with less oversight than ever. Why are we doing 

that? 

Mr. SAMPLER. Congressman, let me just challenge the question 

from the SIGAR report, if I may. It was an audit of our audits. Our 

audits were found to be sound, as you noted. They audited 13 ministries and it was a soup-to-nuts audit of all the risks in all the 

ministries that we could identify. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I believe it was 16 ministries, but go ahead. 

Mr. SAMPLER. We are not working with all of those ministries; 

we are working with 7. That was a deliberate decision based on deVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:45 Apr 24, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00037 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\87460.TXT APRIL
34 

velopment needs, the needs of the Government, and U.S. Government priorities. So in those 7 ministries we again identified every 

possible risk we could through these audits, but we focused on 

projectized money. We don’t give money to the government of Afghanistan, we spend money on projects with the government of Afghanistan, and that is what is missing in the SIGAR audit, is a 

recognition that—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. There is no direct assistance, no on-budget assistance? You are telling me there are no dollars going direct to the 

Afghan government? 

Mr. SAMPLER. There are some terms of art, Congressman, and 

forgive me if this sounds bureaucratic. When we talk about doing 

direct assistance, that is programs that we do with ministries of 

the government of Afghanistan, and we control every dime of that 

money. When we talk about doing on-budget assistance, that is 

when, as Mr. Johnson referred to, we are giving money to a multidonor trust fund that is administered by The World Bank; and 

within that trust fund there is a small window of funds, called recurrent costs, which do go to the government of Afghanistan to 

meet salaries. But every step of that is still audited by international auditors that our inspector general has approved. 

So I refute the notion that we give money to the government of 

Afghanistan. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I just went through this with USAID, with the Kabul Bank situation, nearly $1 billion in missing funds. When I 

went to Afghanistan and sat in the room and I asked those people 

how much of that is U.S. money, they said we have no idea; when 

we just give it to the Afghan government, we have no more accountability, it is hands off, we can’t even tell you. When I went 

to Afghanistan, I just asked for a simple spreadsheet of the schools 

that we had helped. USAID couldn’t even provide me a spreadsheet 

of those. Now, later they followed up and gave us some of those. 

But you are telling me that there is no money, U.S. taxpayer 

money going direct to the Afghan government? 

Mr. SAMPLER. Congressman, there may be some that goes 

through The World Bank multi-donor trust fund and through the 

recurrent cost window—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. That is not the oversight that is happening here. 

We are not giving all this money to The World Bank. That is not 

how this is working. 

Mr. SAMPLER. No, Congressman, most of our money is done in direct assistance, and that is where USAID professionals work with 

the ministries of the seven ministries I named on specific programs. So most of it is projectized money. But you asked me directly if we give money to the government of Afghanistan, and the 

only way that could be interpreted as happening is if it is done 

through the very carefully regulated World Bank multi-donor trust 

fund. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. When it says in this report, ‘‘SIGAR found that 

USAID–Afghanistan has only required the ministries to implement 

24 of the 333 recommended risk-mitigation measures prior to receiving funds,’’ true or false? 

Mr. SAMPLER. True, Congressman, but inaccurate. The inaccuracy is we identified every possible weakness within these minVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:45 Apr 24, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00038 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\87460.TXT APRIL
35 

istries, but our projectized risk, the risk to a particular project in 

the Ministry of Public Health, doesn’t require all those risks to be 

mitigated at once. The conditions precedence, the things that we 

forced them to fix now, before we give them money, are risks that 

are specific and immediate to a particular project. 

And I will note that we do address all the risks through a completely separate technical assistance goal. Our goal was to create 

ministries that do this themselves, and that is the reason the direct 

assistance is a valuable tool. But our first priority is safeguarding 

taxpayer resources, so we don’t put money into any of these ministries. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I am way past my time. 

I recognize the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Tierney, the 

ranking member. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. 

Mr. Johnson, does the Government Accountability Office have 

staff on the ground in Afghanistan? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, we do. 

Mr. TIERNEY. And how important is their presence to the investigations of the programs and the policies in that country? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Their presence, which the Congress has supported 

and we thank you for that support, has been extremely valuable, 

it gives us the firsthand, realtime experience and interaction with 

our colleagues who were there in the IG and oversight community, 

as well as with the agencies that we do oversight for you, whether 

it is DOD, State, and USAID. So their presence has been extremely 

valuable. 

Mr. TIERNEY. And how important is it that those individuals 

have access to documents that they believe are relevant to their investigations and audits? 

Mr. JOHNSON. That is extremely important to our work, and with 

respect to the work in Afghanistan we have had a pretty good relationship with respect to our Afghanistan-related work. 

Mr. TIERNEY. So how open would you say the United States 

Agency of International Development has been to reviews of those 

documents by the General Accountability Office? 

Mr. JOHNSON. If the focus is on our Afghanistan oversight, we 

have had pretty good interaction with the folks at the mission with 

respect to our Afghanistan oversight. 

Mr. TIERNEY. So you have been allowed to review the documents, 

even documents that were marked sensitive, but unclassified? 

Mr. JOHNSON. In some cases, and with respect to Afghanistan, 

that answer would be an affirmative answer. 

Mr. TIERNEY. You have been able to do that. 

Mr. JOHNSON. With respect to Afghanistan. 

Mr. TIERNEY. And with respect to where have you not had that 

kind of cooperation? 

Mr. JOHNSON. I think it has been somewhat not an access issue, 

but more so we have experienced some challenges in terms of the 

processes we have had to go through to gain the timely ability to 

review documents. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Can you explain that to me? 

Mr. JOHNSON. I guess basically there are some cases where we 

have to have our staff come over to a reading room and other areas 

36 

to look at materials, and that has basically created more of a strain 

on our resources and been somewhat more costly. 

Mr. TIERNEY. So these are unclassified documents that your staff 

has had to be brought over to a facility and the work is done there? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes. 

Mr. TIERNEY. And whose policy is that? 

Mr. JOHNSON. This is actually within USAID’s policy. 

Mr. TIERNEY. And in practical terms how does that affect the 

work that you are trying to do? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, as I pointing out, most of the effect has to 

do with a resource constraint. We see it as something that creates 

an additional cost for our resources. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Sample, I would be a little concerned if those 

sets of policies are being used in any way at all for abusive purposes. I understand that sometimes it is necessary to have documents have some level of secrecy, but if you are going to be marking things that are sensitive, but not classified, it seems that there 

could be a better policy worked out to allow access without causing 

such a strain on resources. What do you say? 

Mr. SAMPLER. Congressman, first, of course USAID does not in 

any way want to hamper the work of GAO or your committee, and 

it is our policy to share information that is required for those duties. When we mark information sensitive, but unclassified, we provide always, in camera, access to full, unredacted documents, in 

every case, as far as I am aware. 

Mr. TIERNEY. You just make them spend extra resources getting 

over to take a look at them. 

Mr. SAMPLER. The problem, Congressman, is that in the generation of some of these documents, they include information that is 

sensitive. The example I have used in Afghanistan is some of the 

documents we created actually named members of oversight bodies 

like your own in the government of Afghanistan who are providing 

oversight and trying to prevent Afghan fraud, waste, and abuse; 

and naming them in a public document would put them literally 

at risk of their life, and that is sensitive information. It is not classified because it doesn’t do risk to the United States’ national interest, but it is sensitive. 

Mr. TIERNEY. I don’t think it is anybody’s surprise who the members of this panel are and that we are doing this kind of work. I 

mean, I am concerned because when Mr. Sopko went over there, 

it was working the same issue. He reported back that he was coming into some of the same restrictions on that and that when he 

asked for an explanation of it, he was told that documents could 

be disclosed, except that they would be found to be embarrassing. 

Now, I don’t think that you drafted the policy, for sure, but you 

may be stuck with trying to implement it from time to time. Have 

you come across any of those situations where things were not disclosed primarily because they would just be embarrassing if they 

were, as opposed to being so sensitive for security reasons? 

Mr. SAMPLER. No, Congressman, we would not hold documents 

back and we have not, to my knowledge, redacted documents because of that. The issue that you are describing with the special 

inspector general may well have an impact, however, on the next 

round of engagements with the government of Afghanistan. They 

37 

opened all their books to us in an unprecedented level of access to 

do a collaborative assessment of risk in their ministries expecting 

that those would be kept internal to the U.S. Government. 

They have since not been kept internal to the U.S. Government. 

The reactions are to protect personal interests and individuals, and 

in a couple cases to protect against the revealing vulnerabilities in 

Afghan systems that would indeed open them up to exactly the 

kind of exploitation that we are trying to avoid and train them not 

to do. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, I have some sympathy for the sensitivity 

issue with respect to the Afghan officials, but I have no sensitivity 

to them not opening their books fully in order for us to review and 

audit whether or not they are spending the money that the United 

States appropriates wisely. So obviously there is a question of a 

balance there on that that we have to strike on that basis, but I 

would like to see some effort be made to lighten the burden on personnel that the General Accountability Office and the inspector 

general have in getting access to those documents so that it doesn’t 

become onerous, sort of a stepped-up effort to make sure there really is a national security issue on sensitivity on that before any kind 

of restriction is put on them at all. 

Recently there was a proposal, USAID proposal to hire photographers in Afghanistan, and the expressed purpose, I am told, was 

‘‘to counter negative visual images coming from Afghanistan with 

high-quality positive images.’’ To the extent possible, can you explain the reason behind that original proposal? 

Mr. SAMPLER. Certainly, Congressman. Our staff work is not always as good as it should be before it is released to the public. I 

will just be candid. If I had seen that, I would not have released 

it to the public as it was written. The staff in Afghanistan are passionate about the work that they do, and by the time newspaper 

reports in Washington get put up on the Internet and go back to 

Kabul, the real experience our staff have on the ground with what 

is reported in the international media just doesn’t sync. They have 

a cognitive dissonance between what they are doing and what they 

see with their own eyes and then what they see reported in the 

international press. 

Now, I personally push aggressively, from my time in private 

practice, to encourage every staff member to collect stories and pictures and opportunities to talk about and demonstrate the effects 

of the good work that is being done, but the quality of what we collect ourselves is not that good; our cell phone photographs and our 

selfies that are taken in the field don’t tell the story adequately 

well. So the intent of this was merely to capture positive news stories in Afghanistan that we know are there and make them available for people who wish to see them. It was not an attempt to 

propagandize, it was not an attempt to gain or to counter negative 

stories. It was, though, an attempt, and in my opinion a poorly executed, but well intended attempt, to tell the good news stories of 

the work that USAID, the U.S. Government, and, indeed, all the 

donors are doing in Afghanistan. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, when you use an expression like ‘‘counter 

negative visual images,’’ it sort of flows against what you are trying 

to tell us here on that, so it was at least a most unfortunate use 

38 

of language, if nothing else. I assume that now that that project 

has been cancelled and there has been some attention brought to 

the matter, it is a lesson learned for folks. I think most of us are 

never happy with the press and the visual and verbal images that 

they project when they fly by and write a story and go off into the 

sunset, but I don’t think it gives us license to try and create our 

own stories on that. 

Mr. SAMPLER. No, I agree, Congressman. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Appreciate your remarks. Thank you. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

We now recognize the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Mica, for five 

minutes. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

A couple of things. Let me go first to Mr. Sampler. Got this amount, $102 billion U.S. assistance in aid, non-military, since 

2002, is it? Is that correct? 

Mr. SAMPLER. It is, Congressman, depending on how you parse 

the money. As was previously noted, a large percentage, over half 

of that was, in fact, used for development and assistance to the 

military. 

Mr. MICA. How much is their annual budget? I have $7.5 billion. 

That is the federal budget for Afghanistan? 

Mr. SAMPLER. I think that is right, but I can’t confirm that. 

Mr. MICA. And my calculation is that we have been pouring in an average of about $10 billion in economic aid, not counting military aid. Is that a ballpark figure? 

Mr. SAMPLER. Congressman, I am not sure what you asked, I am 

sorry. 

Mr. MICA. Well, it is about $10 billion in economic aid a year 

over that period, maybe 9 or something. 

Mr. SAMPLER. I am sorry, development assistance, yes. 

Mr. MICA. On average. So that my point is that the average aid, 

non-military, exceeds their annual budget. That would be correct. 

It has to be more than the $7.5. 

Now, the chairman cited that we had a hearing here with the 

special inspector general and he sat right in that chair. I almost 

fell of my chair when he said there is $20 billion right now in economic aid that the Afghans have neither the capacity to absorb or 

ability to spend or steal, and when I got to question him a second 

time I said did I hear you say capacity to spend or steal, and I 

think he confirmed that was the case. 

Do you believe that also to be the case? 

Mr. SAMPLER. Congressman, we are working aggressively to increase their capacity to spend that money and decrease their capacity to steal it. 

Mr. MICA. But his review was quite critical, that the level of corruption is extremely high. Now, you go after people who misuse 

your money, USAID money. I guess you have administered about 

47 percent of that. Does that include the money going through 

NGOs or is the 53 percent given to other international organizations? 

Mr. SAMPLER. Congressman, some goes through local and international NGOs, and our money is aggressively pursued and overseen. 

39 

Mr. MICA. Has there been any case in which the United States 

has pursued people who have misused our dollars that you could 

site? 

Mr. SAMPLER. There have been programs that we shut down because they were not performing. 

Mr. MICA. Have we had the ability—it is within another jurisdiction—to go after them, or have the Afghanis prosecuted anyone for 

corruption, fraud, or abuse of that aid? 

Mr. SAMPLER. The first question, I don’t know the answer to 

that. I don’t know if we have actually—— 

Mr. MICA. Can you provide it to the committee? 

Mr. SAMPLER. We can. 

Mr. MICA. Okay. 

Mr. SAMPLER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. MICA. To your knowledge, has anyone been prosecuted for 

misusing U.S. dollars? 

Mr. SAMPLER. In Afghanistan? 

Mr. MICA. Yes. 

Mr. SAMPLER. We actually arrested a USAID staff member in Afghanistan who our own inspector general had investigated—— 

Mr. MICA. So you can testify that some of our people have done 

wrong. Any Afghanis or any other folks that we know of that we 

have gone after? It sounds like we have lost billions to corruption 

as high as the President’s office and family, and, again, when I 

went over there, Mr. Chaffetz had been over there and cited that, 

I remember pointing out, I went to a forward operating position in 

one of the villages and the troops pointed out, see that school over 

there, we constructed it? That is the village joke because we paid 

five or ten times what it should cost to build that. Are you aware 

that that kind of misuse of our hard-earned taxpayer dollars has 

gone on, continues to go on? 

Mr. SAMPLER. Congressman, let me answer your first point first, 

about billions of dollars in corruption. I will state categorically 

USAID has not lost billions of dollars to corruption in Afghanistan. 

To your point of a specific school in a specific—— 

Mr. MICA. Well, then it will be to overpayment and misuse, 

waste. 

Mr. SAMPLER. Congressman, I cannot honestly categorically say 

there have not been overpayments. Doing reconstruction and development in a war zone is a challenge. Our guidance, our rules don’t 

allow for it. When we find it, we pursue it. 

Mr. MICA. If I wanted to stop the aid, what do I have to go 

through, which budget, would that be State? Most of this AID 

money is coming through the State. 

Mr. SAMPLER. From the Foreign Operation, yes, Congressman. 

Mr. MICA. So that is where I have to target it. 

Mr. SAMPLER. Congressman, I am not certain of the process—— 

Mr. MICA. Well, I want you to help me because I want to cut us 

off. You may not be inclined to cooperate other than providing me 

with assurance that if I cut it off, there will be able to stop some 

of the waste and abuse. 

My time is up, but I have lots more questions, Mr. Chairman, I 

would like to submit and get follow up responses, and I yield back. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. The gentleman yields back. 

40 

All members’ questions within the time frame will be submitted, 

and we would appreciate both of you, Mr. Johnson and Mr. Sampler, to help us, in a timely way, getting answers to those questions. 

Duly noted for Mr. Mica. 

We will now recognize the gentlewoman from California, Ms. 

Speier, for five minutes. 

Ms. SPEIER. I believe Mr. Welch is next. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Mr. Welch, my apologies. You are now recognized 

for five minutes. 

Mr. WELCH. That is okay. Thank you very much. 

I agree with the statement of Mr. Chaffetz, your opening statement, and Mr. Tierney, your opening statement. I really appreciate 

the fact that you are having this hearing at this time, and I think 

the whole committee does; it is really refreshing for me to be part 

of a constructive oversight operation. 

You know, you are here, but we have a problem that you didn’t 

cause; to a significant degree, Congress has been complicit in this. 

We have a situation now in Afghanistan where, obviously, it is in 

our interest for them to maintain the gains that have been made. 

It is in our interest for Afghanistan to have maximum stability. 

But having said those are our interests, does it mean that if we 

continue pumping money into a country that has institutionalized 

corruption, weak institutions, and a revenue system that is basically non-existent, we can have any confidence whatsoever that 

that money will achieve the goals of maintaining gains or stability? 

I mean, that is really my question. I would not have a problem 

sending resources to Afghanistan if I had the slightest bit of confidence that it would actually work. 

And you have laid out a number of the steps that you have tried 

to take in order to maintain some accountability and transparency, 

but there is, it seems to me, a problem, and that is no matter what 

steps you take, no matter how much you try to stay ahead of the 

game, if you have a government that will not even establish a revenue system, that basically says, hey, 3 percent of our revenue will 

come from what we collect and 97 percent will come from foreign 

aid, and then that foreign aid, as I think everybody knows, has 

been used basically as a source of funding the private lives and an 

institutionalized system of corruption, rather than building up institutions, I think it makes it hard on both sides of the aisle to be 

confident that, even if we share the goal that you are trying to 

achieve, sending the money is going to get the job done. 

So my question is this: Given that skepticism, which I think is 

widely shared, what are some specific concrete things that we could 

do that are easy to understand, easy to monitor, that would guarantee that the money delivered was not stolen? That is number 

one. Number two, should there be some preconditions like, for instance, that the Afghanistan government establishes a revenue system whereby they have some skin in the game before we are just 

sending checks that we are not confident are going to be used? 

So that is kind of a long question, but I think it states the dilemma that we are in. Start with you, Mr. Sampler. 

Mr. SAMPLER. Congressman, I appreciate your skepticism. I 

make it a point, once a month, to try and get outside the Beltway 

41 

and talk to business organizations, and I get exactly the same 

skepticism from ordinary Americans; and I think it is important 

that we be reminded that the people providing us these resources 

are skeptical. 

The first point I will make in terms of assuring success is that 

the money we have invested thus far has produced spectacular development returns. And I use those words advisedly. They truly 

are, in the realm of development, spectacular returns; in the area 

of health, education, infrastructure, and even in the area of building governance. 

In 2002 there was not an intact building anywhere in Kabul. 

There were no ministries in 2002. Next month, in less than 30 

days, we will have an election in Afghanistan where a democratically elected government will pass the reins of power to another 

democratically elected administration, we hope. 

I think you are right to look for preconditions. I think, at this 

point in time, this government is in less than an advantageous position to impose them. But I know from working with the ministers, the technocrats who have been selected to lead the government, that they do understand both the skepticism in the parliaments and in the populations of the donor countries, and the requirement that they begin to show that they do have skin in the 

game and that they are interested in weaning themselves off of 

donor dependency. 

With respect to specific measures, I wish I could say that there 

are simple things that we can do; and there are some, but they get 

very complicated quickly as we begin to explain them. If this were 

particularly risk-free and particularly easy and direct to do, I 

would expect us to pass this to the private sector. That is what 

they do. What we do is work in situations where the risks cannot 

always be eliminated. 

But you asked for specific things. With respect to projectizing 

money, that is probably the principal way we assure that the admittedly corrupt government of Afghanistan does not, in turn, corrupt our programs. We projectize money; we do not give money to 

the government. We control the bank accounts. In these projects, 

we insist that they set up a separate, non-comingled bank account 

that USAID has control of and oversight over. 

If the money is being paid out to a ministry as they achieve a 

milestone, then we verify the achievement of that milestone, and 

we do it through various and multiple data collection methods. It 

maybe technological, through satellite imagery; it may be crowd 

sourcing, where we talk to the recipients of the program; it may be 

self-reporting from the government or self-reporting from a partner. But we take multiple inputs and we have a unit that has been 

created at the embassy, called the Institutional Support Unit, that 

analyzes this data and renders a very dry and a very detached perspective of is this data collection acceptable and can we say they 

have met the milestone. If we can’t, we don’t pay. If they meet the 

milestone, we do. 

Separately, we may pay cost accruals, where they turn in receipts. But, again, we validate those receipts through multiple external sources. 

42 

So there is a number, and I would argue an adequate number, 

of different kinds of mechanisms, counters and checks and balances 

in place. They haven’t been reported in the special inspector general reports, but they are there, and hopefully a future inspector 

general report will examine those as well. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

I thank the gentleman. 

To suggest that they are trying to wean themself off of foreign 

assistance defies logic. They are not doing anything like that, and 

we are spending more money there than ever. We are increasing 

the spending there, we are not decreasing it. Why would they do 

it? Why would they wean themselves off of this money when we 

just give it to them for free? That is a ridiculous assertion and you 

should be ashamed for making that comment. 

We now recognize the gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Duncan, 

for five minutes. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I 

don’t have any questions, but I do want to make a statement. I 

have no criticism of Mr. Sampler or the Agency for International 

Development, because I am sure they are doing the best they can 

with the assignment they have been given. But I will criticize the 

policy, because I think it is totally crazy what we are doing over 

there in regard to particularly the amount of money that we are 

spending. 

This is my 26th year in the Congress. When I first came here, our national debt was less than $3 trillion. I thought that was terrible. But we have lost sight up here of how much money a trillion 

dollars is. We can’t even comprehend anything like that; yet now 

we are over $17 trillion in debt and they say we are going to double 

that in another eight or nine years. Yet, we are sending all this 

money down a rat hole in Afghanistan. 

I have been given several articles here, one from the Huffington 

Post, that says, as Afghanistan draw down looms, inspector general 

warns of graft, and it says he is watching the country slip away 

and he is quoted as saying, every time I visit, I am told by people 

that we are succeeding, says John Sopko; and he has been here to 

testify in front of us several times. I am not an expert on war fighting, but I know I can see less of the country every time I go because of security problems. 

Then there is an article from some publication called The Interpreter that says, Foreign Aid: Is Afghanistan a Welfare State? 

Well, I voted for the go to war in Afghanistan, but I sure didn’t 

vote for a forever war or a permanent war, or to turn Afghanistan 

into a welfare state, and that is what we have done. This is a country that had a GDP of $21 billion before we went in there, and 

now, according to the World Affairs Journal, there is an article 

here that says, Money Pit: The Monstrous Failure of U.S. Aid to 

Afghanistan. And it says in this article, it says, in a recent quarterly report, the U.S. inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction said that when security for aid workers is figured in, the total 

amount of non-military funds Washington has appropriated since 

2002 is approximately $100 billion. 

You know, it is unbelievable what we have spent militarily, but 

$100 billion. And that was the figure last July. And it says, since 

43 

then, Congress has appropriated another $16.5 billion for reconstruction, and it says in this article, it says, What has all this 

spending accomplished? ‘‘The short answer is not so much,’’ said 

Masood Fayvar, a senior Afghan journalist. And it says, or as the 

International Crisis Group put it, ‘‘Despite billions of dollars in aid, 

state institutions remain fragile and unable to provide good governance, deliver basic services to the majority of the population, or 

guarantee human security.’’ Lastly, Heather Barr of Human Rights 

Watch, a long-time representative in Afghanistan, said, Afghanistan in many ways is sort of a perfect case study of how not to give 

aid. 

You know, when we are borrowing 42 percent, or whatever it is, 

of every penny that we spend, it is just ridiculous to think that we 

have spent this much money over there. Our Constitution doesn’t 

give us the authority or the right to run another country and do 

everything imaginable for them. I mean, I am for trade and tourism and cultural educational exchanges and helping out to a very 

limited extent during humanitarian crises, but I will say again it 

is just ridiculous. It is just crazy for us to spend this much money 

that we don’t have, because it is long past the time when we need 

to start putting our own Country and our own people first once 

again, and stop trying to do all this that we are doing over in Afghanistan. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. Appreciate that. 

We will now recognize the gentlewoman from California, Ms. 

Speier, for five minutes. 

Ms. SPEIER. Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

And to Mr. Sampler and Mr. Johnson, thank you both for your 

service to our Country and for the leadership that you have shown. 

I think what you are feeling here on this dais is that we believe 

that USAID has a purpose, and around the world, when we create 

this soft money to go into countries and to help people build their 

infrastructure and their economic prowess, we do it expecting that 

it is going to work. We spent a lot of money in Iraq, maybe not as 

much as we spent in Afghanistan, and then they kicked us out. 

And, Mr. Sampler, you would agree that money is basically down 

the tubes, right? 

Mr. SAMPLER. No, ma’am, not categorically I wouldn’t. I mean, 

the development good that was done in Afghanistan is a lasting 

good; the children that were fed, schools that were built. So development money is development money. So I don’t categorically agree 

that that money is lost because of a political schism between us 

and Iraq. The development good that we did in Iraq has lasting effects. I am not a specialist, I haven’t done Iraq, but, in general, I 

don’t believe that just because we are not still there doesn’t mean 

that the good we did was lost. 

Ms. SPEIER. How much money did we spend on this spin doctor? 

Mr. SAMPLER. I am sorry, ma’am, I don’t understand. 

Ms. SPEIER. Mr. Tierney had queried you about the position that 

was created. 

Mr. SAMPLER. We never hired that position. 

Ms. SPEIER. Well, how much were you slated to spend on it? 

Mr. SAMPLER. I don’t know the answer to that. 

44 

Ms. SPEIER. Could you find out and return that information to 

the committee so we know what the priority was there? 

Mr. SAMPLER. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. SPEIER. In 2010, President Karzai said we could no longer 

rely on contractors to provide security for our convoys and the people that we had there, and that we had to rely on the Afghan Public Protection Force. Now President Karzai is reporting that he is 

disbanding the APPF. So I think we are all very concerned up here 

that we not have another Benghazi, that we don’t lose members 

who are providing services for USAID or from the State Department. 

How are we providing security for our facilities and our personnel there? 

Mr. SAMPLER. Yes, ma’am. No one shares your concern about the 

safety of our staff more than I do. A point of fact, though, a clarification. APPF, as you noted, was decried by President Karzai in 

2010. APPF, however, does not provide security for diplomatic enclaves. So U.S. Government direct hires, my staff and the State Department staff—— 

Ms. SPEIER. All right, let’s talk about the people that aren’t your 

staff. 

Mr. SAMPLER. Okay. Partners, Medicins Sans Frontieres, forprofit partners who work for us in Afghanistan, if they wish to 

have armed guards, they must be hired through APPF by Afghan 

law. At the time of APPF’s creation, only about 20 percent of our 

partners actually used armed guards. So 20 percent of our partners 

were required to enter contractual agreements with the stateowned enterprise known as APPF for their guards. 

Ms. SPEIER. All right, I already said that. I want to get to your 

answer. What is happening now that Karzai is disbanding APPF? 

Mr. SAMPLER. Yes, ma’am. It is an internal Afghan government 

discussion, it is ongoing. The most recent diplomatic engagement 

with Minister of Interior Daudzai, he assured us that there would 

be no interruption of services being provided by APPF to our partners. He provided static security and convoy security, the latter 

primarily for the military, but Daudzai made a very clear statement to senior U.S. Government officials, because we asked him 

very pointedly these questions, and he said there would not be an 

interruption of service. 

Ms. SPEIER. Well, if the APPF is being disbanded, who is going 

to provide the security? 

Mr. SAMPLER. Again, the context is that Afghanistan is facing a 

presidential election in less than a month. There is a fair amount 

of confusion inside the Afghan government about what they are 

going to do, which is why we went to the minister for his assurance. I think there is an expectation on the part of some that APPF 

will be absorbed back into the Ministry of Interior and to the Afghan Uniform Police Service—— 

Ms. SPEIER. So we don’t know, but we are relying on a minister 

within the government, who may or may not be there after the 

election. 

Mr. SAMPLER. Ma’am, in all candor, in most countries that is all 

we have. 

45 

Ms. SPEIER. And maybe you can’t do more than that. But I just 

want a straight answer. I think the committee deserves a straight 

answer, and we need to have our eyes wide open in terms of what 

kind of protection or lack of protection is there for those who are 

what we are engaged in having us provide assistance to the Afghan 

people. 

You said that there are no funds that go directly to the government and that you control these funds. So, if I understand you correctly, you have money that is going to an NGO or someone providing services who is a for-profit, you put the money in a bank, 

a central bank in Afghanistan, and withdrawals are only made by 

you, is that correct? 

Mr. SAMPLER. The withdrawals are authorized by USAID, yes, 

ma’am. 

Ms. SPEIER. Well, do you make an authorization of $20 million 

or $4,000 because that is what the invoice is for? 

Mr. SAMPLER. It depends on the program, ma’am. In every case 

we are either paying for reaching a milestone, in which case we externally validate that they reached the milestone and then we pay 

them what we agreed for that, or we are paying for the accrual of 

expenses, in which case they submitted batches of receipts and we, 

in turn, audit the receipts and externally validate that the receipts 

are good. But in either case we validate what we are paying for before we pay it, and then we validate that the check actually went 

to the person or the organization that performed the services. 

Ms. SPEIER. And how do you validate that? 

Mr. SAMPLER. We ask them. 

Ms. SPEIER. So you call them up on the phone and say did you 

actually get this check? 

Mr. SAMPLER. We can in some cases. There are different ways 

that we can do that, but, yes, ma’am, most of the NGOs that do 

this work, in public health, for example, are NGOs that are known 

to us. We have been in Afghanistan now for a dozen years and 

some of these NGOs have been there for 40 or 50 years. So when 

the Ministry of Public Health, with our oversight and permission, 

engages a particular NGO to do a health clinic, we know the people 

that run that clinic and we know that NGO, and we are able to 

ask the clinic did you get the resources, did you get the $12,627 

that you asked for. 

Ms. SPEIER. All right. 

Mr. Chairman, my time has expired, but I still have an abiding 

question as to how a billion dollars in funds at the Kabul Bank got 

distributed to a group of 18 individuals and we don’t know why or 

how, and we are presuming this money was not U.S. money, which 

is what I guess everyone is presuming. I yield back. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. And I think the point there, if the gentlewoman 

would yield, is that there was a significant amount of U.S. money. 

Part of this went to Karzai’s brother. He is listed as one of the people taking this money. And the excuse that we get from USAID is, 

well, once we give it to the government, it is hands off, we don’t 

get to see it anymore; that is their business, not our business. And 

there have been external reports done on this. This is one of those 

big concerns. 

46 

And I would point also the gentlewoman back in September there was a criticism from the SIGAR focused on a $236 million USAID 

program called Partnership Contracts for Health. In fairness, 

USAID denied that they were giving money directly to the government, but SIGAR said that there was a—I don’t want to put words 

in their mouth, but it obviously caused them great concern. So this 

is why we have a special inspector general; they get to go in and 

be objective, and they don’t come back with glowing reports. 

Let me recognize the gentlewoman from Wyoming, who has been 

waiting patiently, Mrs. Lummis, and we will go from there. Thank 

you. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Sampler, I want to go back to a response you made to Mr. 

Mica and ask you to elaborate a little. What did you mean by increasing the Afghan capacity to spend our money? 

Mr. SAMPLER. Yes, ma’am. There are multiple ways to achieve 

development objectives in Afghanistan. If it is, again, health, to use 

that example, if the goal is to innoculate children, we can do this 

directly through NGOs very effectively. But that doesn’t get us out 

of the business of supporting Afghanistan and it doesn’t reduce 

their donor dependency. So—— 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Why not? Why not? 

Mr. SAMPLER. Because we are doing the work ourselves, rather 

than teaching the government of Afghanistan how to do it. It is 

complicated and it requires mentoring. So when I say increasing 

their ability to spend our money, the government of Afghanistan 

ministries have underperformed, over the past few years, with respect to budget execution. Money that they have in their budgets 

and that the government of Afghanistan, in their fledgling attempts to allocate budgets and resources, they haven’t been able to 

spend it—— 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Okay. Now, Mr. Sampler, I am going to interrupt 

you just because I have to go to my constituents, and when they 

find out that we are giving money for aid in Afghanistan, and these 

are people in my State who have been to the Pine Ridge, South Dakota Oglala Sioux Reservation. Some of them have been to Detroit 

since it has gone bankrupt and whole buildings are being occupied 

by people with drug problems and communities are deteriorating in 

this Country. They have seen the grinding poverty among some 

Shoshone and Arapaho on the Wind River Indian Reservation in 

Wyoming and elsewhere. 

How can I tell them that we are working so hard to increase the 

capacity of the Afghan government to spend our money when the 

response I am going to get is why would we increase the Afghan 

government’s capacity, a government that you acknowledge is 

untrustworthy and corrupt, when we have uses here in this Country where there is grinding poverty right before our eyes in American cities, around American Indian reservations? I am having 

trouble answering that question, so help me answer that question. 

Assume that I am your constituent. 

Mr. SAMPLER. Yes, ma’am. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. And you have to respond. 

Mr. SAMPLER. Again, I go out every chance I get, back to my 

home State of Georgia, and have exactly these conversations with 

47 

businessmen at home, to include my dad, and the challenge is if 

we don’t do it right in Afghanistan, we may find ourselves having 

to do it again in another 12 years. Someone has to secure the space 

of Afghanistan; it is an incredibly wild country. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. It is. I have been there. I have been there with the 

gentleman from Vermont at the end of the table, and we were out 

in Kandahar Province and we saw—the U.S. had rebuilt the third 

holiest Muslim site in Afghanistan in a remote area in Kandahar 

Province because their own people, in a civil war, had destroyed 

their own religion’s third holiest site. So we go and rebuild it, and 

then we have Army Rangers Special Ops people out there, Americans, trying to defend it from being destroyed again by Muslims in 

their own country. It just defies logic to me that that is how we 

are spending our money. 

Again, try to help me explain that. 

Mr. SAMPLER. Yes, ma’am. The question of corruption is one that 

I think deserves a lot of attention. It is perhaps the single greatest 

challenge that we are facing. And the point that I make when I go 

out to speak to constituents is that, in my opinion, in developmental theory, the best way to combat corruption is strong institutions. Again, in 2002 there were not even strong, solid buildings, 

never mind strong, solid institutions. The work that we are doing 

with the government of Afghanistan is intended to build institutions that will help them fight corruption themselves; it is not 

something we can fix overnight, but it is something that we are determined to fix. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Do you think a corrupt government can be taught 

to be honest? 

Mr. SAMPLER. I am not sure if I would answer it that way. Instead, let me offer this. On your next trip out, meet with the ministers and the people they get up, but also ask to meet with some 

of the young Afghans. The ministries now are populated by Afghans from 25 to 35 years old, and they don’t have to be taught 

to be honest. In my opinion, the vast majority of them, they are patriotic, because they could be working for me at the U.S. Embassy; 

they are college educated, they have been abroad, but they come 

back and choose to work in their ministries for a lower salary because they want Afghanistan to succeed. They don’t have to be 

taught to be honest; they don’t have to be taught to be patriotic; 

they just need a chance. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Thanks, Mr. Sampler. 

My time is up and I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for your 

indulgence. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentlewoman. 

I now recognize the gentlewoman, Mrs. Maloney, for five minutes. 

Mrs. MALONEY. I thank the chairman. 

Are either of you spending much time in Afghanistan? Are you 

there, are you up here? Where are your offices? 

Mr. JOHNSON. The GAO does have a permanent presence in Afghanistan. I actually have three members behind me who actually 

staff that presence for about six months each, and we currently 

have a staff of six people, three people there for six months. I have 

48 

made multiple visits to Afghanistan, as well as Pakistan just across 

the border. 

Mrs. MALONEY. What about you, Mr. Sampler, have you spent 

much time there? 

Mr. SAMPLER. Yes, ma’am. I go about every 60 days. I expect to 

go at the end of the month. I lived there for about three or four 

years. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Are you hopeful? Are we making progress there? 

Mr. SAMPLER. That is a great question, and thank you for asking 

it. In some areas we absolutely are; in other areas we are facing 

still difficult challenges. But I am cautiously optimistic. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Well, I think many of our concerns, and I want 

to echo my colleague on the other side of the aisle, we agree on a 

lot of things on women rights and we agree on this, that it is hard 

to finance an area that is so disgustingly corrupt, and it is again 

and again and again and again. Probably the biggest example was 

the Kabul Bank, which was once Afghanistan’s largest private 

bank. 

But by the time it reached near collapse in 2010, the Kabul Bank had been looted by $935 million primarily by 19 individuals and 

companies, including the Bank’s ex-CEO. These two figures only received five years in prison, and they are now appealing it. So when 

you see that type of action, I am concerned about USAID’s bank 

accounts over in Kabul. Do you feel like your money is secure over 

there? 

Mr. SAMPLER. Yes, ma’am. Kabul Bank has come up a couple 

times, so let me just make a couple points. We lost no U.S. tax dollars in Kabul Bank. We did not have any money in that bank. 

USAID did not have any money in that bank. 

Mrs. MALONEY. But we do now, don’t we? 

Mr. SAMPLER. We do not. We have a relationship with the Kabul 

Central Bank, which would be analogous to our Federal Reserve. 

Kabul Bank would be perhaps a State bank in one of the States. 

Kabul Bank was an Afghan-on-Afghan crime, and our outrage is 

shared and exceeded, perhaps, by the Afghan depositors who lost 

their savings. We are still, in fact, working with the government 

of Afghanistan to pursue the culprits who were associated with the 

Kabul Bank fiasco. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Well, we are facing the same challenge, really, over in the Ukraine, where it has been reported that $88 billion is 

missing from the prior government, and we are getting ready to 

send a billion over of uncapped aid. So the question really is what 

safeguards do we have that our money actually gets to the people 

and the causes that we want. In terms of the Ukraine, reported in 

the press is that even IMF loan guarantees, the loan guarantee 

money came in, they immediately took $23 billion and sent it offshore. So how can we really make sure that it is going for the purposes that we want to help in Afghanistan, Ukraine, or anywhere? 

Mr. SAMPLER. Yes, ma’am. The situation in the Ukraine is different and I can’t really speak to that, but in Afghanistan we 

projectize our money. The USAID money that goes to Afghanistan 

does not go to the government of Afghanistan. But we work with 

a particular ministry or a particular office in that ministry to 

achieve a particular project; and we identify either milestones that 

49 

must be accomplished for particular payments or accrual of payments. 

Mrs. MALONEY. I want to mention contracts, because historically 

our private sector and public sector are very strong when they 

work together. And when contracts were offered in Afghanistan to 

the private sector, what I heard, it was impossible for an American 

company to ever win one because we didn’t bribe and we weren’t 

corrupt. One of my constituents told me he bid on a copper plan, 

copper mine, managing it. His RFP or his proposal ended up in a 

competitor’s hand that then won the contract. The competitor then 

did not even know what to do with the cooper mine and came back 

and tried to hire him. 

So when you see this type of corruption, which I think is very 

shortsighted on behalf of the Afghan government, if they had allowed American business to be fairly treated, then they would be 

there helping the country. But what happened is an American business could never win a contract and then our servicemen and 

women had to risk their lives protecting contractors that came in 

from other countries who hadn’t invested a dime in helping the 

country. So something is very wrong with that equation and I really am disturbed by it. 

Mr. SAMPLER. Yes, ma’am. On the issue of tenders, when the Afghans are able to capitalize on the mineral wealth, I think it will 

be a good day for Afghanistan. We are working aggressively, the 

Ministry of Mines and Petroleum, which is the ministry here in 

question, I believe, to make sure that they have a capacity to do 

business in ways that western organizations understand. That has 

not been the tradition for decades, if not centuries. It has been a 

very patriarchal society and a very—— 

Mrs. MALONEY. But, Mr. Sampler, what I would like to point out 

is we spent billions in treasure and life—— 

Mr. SAMPLER. Yes, ma’am. 

Mrs. MALONEY.—and commitment, and then this country, what 

I was told by American businessmen, they were incapable of ever 

fairly winning a contract. Their applications were given to their 

competitors. I know American businessmen who run around the 

world giving speeches against investing in Afghanistan. So you 

know the stupidity of the country, but also the stupidity of our 

Country in that we are financing everything and protecting foreign 

investors who bribed and got the contracts, and yet American businessmen and women were not successful. 

What can we do to allow American businessmen and women to 

have a fair shot at a contract in Afghanistan? I guess now they 

don’t even want to try, but I think, going forward in other areas 

that we are involved, we were not only paying the bill protecting 

everybody, losing American lives, spending a trillion a day or whatever it was, but other countries came in and benefitted from everything that we did, yet American business and investment could not. 

Now, there is something very wrong with that equation. 

Mr. SAMPLER. Yes, ma’am. 

Mrs. MALONEY. It is not a winning strategy, to say the least. 

Mr. SAMPLER. The goal will be institutions in Afghanistan that 

are transparent and educated, capable and competent, and we are 

not there yet. 

50 

Mrs. MALONEY. Okay. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentlewoman. 

I will now recognize myself for five minutes. 

Mr. Johnson, I want to go back about the idea, talk about is the 

U.S. Government contributing and funding payments to the Afghan 

government. You issued a report in 2011. What is your perspective 

on this? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Chairman, if you are referring to our report on the 

direct assistance, we did find situations where the U.S. Government and USAID, as well as DOD, were providing money through 

trust funds, and that is the Afghan Reconstruction Trust Fund, 

which Mr. Sampler noted, would be sort of an on-budget type of assistance that the Afghan government could have somewhat some 

say-so control in, as well as through LOFTA, which DOD managed. 

So there was quite a bit of money that was going through that 

route. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. So you wrote in this report, ‘‘The United States 

and other donors funded about 90 percent of Afghan’s estimated 

total public expenditures from solar years 2006 to 2011. Of the 90 

percent, the United States provided 62 percent of total expenditures.’’ Is that correct? 

Mr. JOHNSON. The U.S. has been the predominant funder of expenditures. I would note that the bulk of our expenditures were in 

the security sector. We were close to about 40 percent, but we were 

the largest contributor for the non-security sector as well. But altogether there was the international community contributed slightly 

more in a cumulative, if you added it all up, but we were quite a 

substantial contributor, as was noted. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. So another way of saying it is of the public expenditures by the Afghan government, they collect, the Afghans, 

only collect about 10 percent, a very rough number, about 10 percent of what they are able to spend, correct? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Bulk of the money at the time was off-budget, so 

they didn’t really have visibility into the funding until the decision 

was made to go more direct assistance, and then there began to be 

an increase in the amount of money to go to enable the Afghan government to do two things, to fund their local operations, as well as 

pay their own salaries through the direct assistance route and 

build their capacity. 

The issue we had when we sort of not cautioned against it, but 

highlighted, there needs to be controls in place before you try to do 

the two things at the same time, and that is where I talked about 

doing pre-award risk assessments and, more so, mitigating against 

the risks you have identified, which we have seen happen in other 

parts of the world, across the border in Pakistan, for example, a 

similar situation pretty much where we were trying to go the direct 

assistance route, but in those situations we found they were actually embedded in the contract, cooperative agreements, bilateral 

agreements, as well as embed folks in the ministries to ensure that 

there was accountability of our funds. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. So to suggest that the U.S. Government does not 

give money directly to the Afghan government, how would you 

react to that? 

51 

Mr. JOHNSON. I would say that is not totally true that money has 

not gone directly to the Afghan government for them to have on 

budget to expend. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Let me find this issue. I want to come back to 

this because, Mr. Sampler, you go way out of your way to try to 

suggest to us that none of the U.S. taxpayer money is going to the 

Afghan government. 

Mr. SAMPLER. Congressman, USAID does not give money directly 

to the U.S. Government. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. You mean to the Afghan government? 

Mr. SAMPLER. I am sorry. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. You said U.S. Government. To the U.S. Government. 

Mr. SAMPLER. I apologize. Let me restate it. USAID does not give 

money directly to the Afghan government. That was what I meant 

to say, and I hope I have said it consistently. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. You have. I have great concern about that statement, but we will have to continue to sort that out. You said at one 

point we control the bank accounts. Explain that to me. And I want 

to set the context here. We are going to be spending more money 

than ever; our troop levels are coming down; we are going to have 

less security in place to actually do the verification and to get out 

in the field and go see these types of things. Those things just don’t 

add up; they are going in the wrong directions. I mean, it was bad 

before. When I was there and we were at near our peak of when 

we had the number of troops on the ground that we could protect 

our people, they still complained in the offices that they couldn’t go 

out and see these projects. 

When I was there, they couldn’t let me go out and see these 

projects. I asked to go see them. I couldn’t get out there and go see 

them. When I talked to the inspectors, they couldn’t get out into 

the field everywhere that they wanted to go. And when I talked to 

the USAID people, who are just great, brave, patriotic people in the 

most difficult of situations, they said we can’t get out and see these 

projects. 

How is that getting better? It seems like it is going to get worse. 

Mr. SAMPLER. Congressman, this is a problem that has been coming for some time. They have been closing PRTs for two years now, 

and, in fact, they are mostly gone, so this isn’t something that we 

are suddenly waking up and realizing we need new mechanisms for 

monitoring programs. What we have done is, building on expertise 

in Pakistan, 12 years in Afghanistan. I have personally worked in 

both Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Colombia, West Bank, Gaza, 

places where we have had to supervise programs, and yet we cannot, on a regular, predictable basis put U.S. direct-hire boots on the 

ground, we have developed alternative mechanisms that I will 

argue are good. 

The lessons learned from Iraq on this is don’t rely on one source 

of information; do rely on local communities, because they are the 

beneficiaries of these, and if it is not right they will tell you. Focus 

on finding ways that are technologically innovative and different to 

validate programs. So it is not that we have a way to fix these 

things; we have a new office, the Institutional Support Unit, who 

are responsible for, in a very cold and deliberate way, analyzing all 

52 

the inputs about a particular program and saying does this meet 

our requirement. If it meets the requirement, then we will make 

a decision; if it doesn’t meet the requirement, then we suspend or 

terminate the program. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Mr. Johnson, your ability, the ability of the 

SIGAR to get out and be able to actually see and verify, there are 

reports after reports after reports of mismanagement of funds, 

overpaying funds. There was one we were paying $500 a gallon for 

fuel. When you go out and spend $100 billion, there is going to be 

some waste, fraud, and abuse. It is just inevitable, particularly in 

the difficult circumstances that are Afghanistan. I don’t expect it 

to be perfect, but I do expect that we get better at this. And the 

disconnect for me is we are spending more money with less personnel and less safety and security. 

There is no doubt a ton of good that USAID has done and will 

do in the future, but how in the world are we possibly going to 

oversee the proper expenditure of $20 billion in this type of atmosphere? 

Mr. JOHNSON. That is definitely something that is going to challenge all U.S. agencies, including USAID and the oversight community, with the withdrawal of the combat troops, and any other security forces if that is not mitigated in advance. I think that is something we all have to plan for. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. But what do you see, from your objective point of 

view? Were they even achieving that before, when we had the maximum amount of security? 

Mr. JOHNSON. It was definitely a challenging environment for us 

to do oversight, as well as for the agencies to carry out their missions. I think there are other examples, other models, as Mr. Sampler alluded to. If we can’t go out directly and oversee the projects 

ourselves, there are other means by which you can mitigate those 

things, using global imaging systems, things of that nature; not 

just relying on your NGOs and the implementing partners to bring 

you data and provide progress reports, but also using photographs, 

media reports, other things that you can use to validate what you 

are receiving from the folks you are giving money to to carry out 

the program. So you need to have multiple ways of validating what 

you are getting from the folks you are paying. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I agree. We have asked in previous instances can 

we just see a photo of what we built, can you provide a photo. 

Couldn’t even do that. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. Chairman, if I can just note. Some of the work 

we did on the other side of the border, we found that that was 

being done, and even on the Afghan side, data was being collected 

by USAID; however, a lot of the data was not being retained or 

documented. So that was part of the gap. So I think we made recommendations in that area. We were happy that, later on, we saw 

that those recommendations were addressed back then and that 

things were done to document it. We have not looked at that issue 

in a couple years with respect to documentation, but that was a 

weakness previously. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. If you could, that would be great. 

I have gone way over time. I will now recognize the gentleman 

from Massachusetts, Mr. Tierney. 

53 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. 

I think this last series of questions sort of got to the nub of it, 

what we are talking about on this. So the first determination is 

ours, it is the policy decision of the United States’ national security 

interest to continue giving aid to Afghanistan there or not there, 

right? And that is our issue, not yours, on that. And from what I 

understand, the things that we are now providing money for 

through USAID are agriculture, governance, rule of law, and trying 

to increase the economic growth of that country. So we have to determine that those missions are in fact in the United States’ sufficiently, our national security interests, that we want to keep putting money into that. And we have, at least to date, done that because there is money going out and you are in charge, Mr. Sampler, of doing that. 

Let me say people have been pretty pointed with you this afternoon. Whether people up here agree with what is happening out 

there or not, I hope you don’t take it personal on that. And I want 

to tell you that you are and have been an excellent spokesman for 

your agency. We need people to believe in their mission. Some people up here may not think it is a good mission, bad mission, whatever, but it is something that our Government has asked you to do; 

and if they send you out there and somebody is totally cynical and 

not doing it for the right reasons, then we are not being well 

served. And you, sir, I think are fully committed to what you are 

doing, and I want to thank you for it. I appreciate it. And your staff 

that is with you as well. Know that. 

But it is our job to look at this and then say, well, fine, we have 

committed the money, so the next question is how do we do it. How 

do we do it to bring us back some assurance that there is accountability, that the money just isn’t going off into the ethos somewhere. So we want to talk about the amount that we give, the 

manner in which it is given, how we account for it, and we want 

to document that it has been to the benefit of our Country, as well 

as the country that is on the receiving end of it. 

And that is what today’s hearing has been about and, fundamentally, at the very end of it we are sort of honing in. If we don’t have 

security sufficient to take us to where these projects are, whether 

it is a far-flung agricultural project or even rule of law issue in a 

remote province somewhere on that, how do we know it is happening? Or if we are building a school someplace, how do we know 

that it is functioning properly and that it has been constructed 

well? 

In Pakistan we had one problem of having too few USAID people 

to actually monitor it even when they could get to a location. So 

it turned out that what we discovered was we were oftentimes taking the recipient of the grant, a not-for-profit, and then asking 

them how did they do; and remarkably they all thought they were 

doing pretty darn well. So that obviously wasn’t an effective way 

to do it. 

Mr. Johnson has now told us there are other methods that you 

are looking at. One of them is to take visual images on that. But 

I do have to say we spoke a little bit earlier in the questioning 

about people on your staff taking visual images of things but not 

really having great images because of the technology that they 

54 

were limited to and the process. But that is one of the very things 

that we are now going to count on to tell us that things are going 

well. So that has some questions raised right there, right? 

Mr. SAMPLER. Congressman, first of all, thank you for your kind 

comments. 

The photographs that we take with our cell phones are not 

meant to document, they are not meant to be documents of record. 

Mr. TIERNEY. So you have another kind of photograph that you 

are taking for proof of something happening in an area that you 

cannot physically get to? 

Mr. SAMPLER. As an example, one of our monitoring partners has 

a set of cell phones that have very high digital resolution cameras 

and a built-in GPS and a date/time stamp. So if they go out to take 

photographs of a school or photographs of another project, we not 

only know where they were and when they were there and what 

the photograph is of, but even which direction the camera is facing. 

Mr. TIERNEY. And this partner is a private partner or an Afghan 

national, or who may it be? 

Mr. SAMPLER. It is an international private contractor who uses 

local Afghan subcontractors to do the work. 

Mr. TIERNEY. All right. And they have been vetted to our satisfaction? 

Mr. SAMPLER. They have. We have a vetting program that is 

pretty aggressive and they have been vetted before the contract 

was let. 

Mr. TIERNEY. All right. So, of course, a further part of that is it 

is one thing to build a structure, it is another thing to be able to 

complete the inside of it, staff it properly, and get a product out 

of it. So those things still remain a challenge, I would think. 

Mr. Johnson, once we build a school, how do we make sure that 

it is functioning if we don’t have the security to go out there and 

physically do it? Do we have a solution for that type of issue? 

Mr. JOHNSON. I think there have been situations and, again, 

some of this goes back to the security environment. If we build a 

school, what the security environment allows for it to be used, and 

that is an issue where, in advance, you should have studied that, 

you made that determination before you invested the U.S. dollars. 

I think there have been a few situations where that may have occurred. 

But I think, getting back to an earlier point that was made that 

Mr. Sampler pointed out, and I am quite pleased to hear sort of 

the imaging that is being taken. If there is some GPS tracking embedded, there is some date stamping, that is one of the things we 

felt like was needed, when you have the evidence, but you need to 

document it better, that we see would enhance the capability of 

USAID to show or have proof in its records. This all goes back to 

the knowledge transfer, having institutional knowledge. I mentioned the turnover ratio that takes place. When the next person 

comes in, they will have that evidence there and know how to build 

on that and use that to make future decisions. 

Mr. TIERNEY. The whole validation issue is a problem for us. I 

go back to Pakistan again only because we had some concrete examples. In fact, I think the inspector general’s report out of the 

whole Iraq process helped us with Iraq. I think some of our experiVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:45 Apr 24, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00058 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\87460.TXT APRIL
55 

ences in Pakistan helped us look at this. But in Pakistan, where 

the premise early on was to give the money to the government and 

then take the receipts and check the receipts, we were getting 

great receipts back. I was just telling the chairman here that we 

spent millions of dollars fixing 35 helicopters and had the receipts 

for them, and the money was approved and sent. When we went 

there on the ground and asked to be taken to those helicopters, 

funny thing is none of them could fly on that. So I don’t know how 

you get beyond that, but that is a concern that we have, is who is 

validating those receipts beyond just having an Afghan partner 

come up and say here are the receipts, we really did this work. 

How does that work? 

Mr. SAMPLER. Congressman, if I may, technology helps us. And 

I will use the school example because, in developing countries, 

schools are often a way that a government is able to spread the largesse in ways that are not necessarily above board, by ghost teachers or ghost schools. In Afghanistan, if we build a school and we 

wish to validate whether the school is functioning properly, we 

don’t ask the Ministry of Education and we don’t ask the teachers; 

we can ask the community. And, again, that is why these independent monitoring contracts are valuable, because they can go 

and have a local shura meeting where they talk to the community 

and say are you getting what you want from this school. 

If they are not, the community may not stand up and waive their 

arms and draw attention to themselves, calling out corruption 

within the Ministry of Education, but before the monitoring unit 

leaves town, very often they will pull them aside and say they don’t 

have 20 teachers at that school, they have 3. 

So we have SMS technology that we can use for things like that. 

We have independent contractors. 

And, Mr. Chairman, to your point earlier, even if you gave me 

back 100,000 troops on the ground, the security situation would do 

what it is going to do, but I would still use the multiplicity of monitoring techniques that we have developed over all these countries 

and over all these years because, again, one of the lessons from 

Iraq was do not depend on a single point of reporting; require multiple reports, and in that there are discrepancies, find out where 

the discrepancy is. And that works independent of the number of 

international or U.S. troops on the ground. 

So that is the reason that I have some level of confidence, going 

forward, that we are focusing on the right things. We haven’t fixed 

all the problems yet, but we are focusing on the right things to fix 

them. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you for that, Mr. Sampler. 

So we have a requirement that we have a separate bank account 

established for each project when we do it, is that correct? 

Mr. SAMPLER. That is correct. We monitor the accounts and control the funds. 

Mr. TIERNEY. And are we depositing that United States assistance into the Central Bank? 

Mr. SAMPLER. Congressman, I don’t think so. I think it goes into 

whichever commercial bank we have identified with that ministry 

will be the repository of those funds, much like an escrow account 

would be here in the States. 

56 

Mr. TIERNEY. And so we do have actual physical oversight of that 

account, it is not a question of going off to the Central Bank and 

then we are relying on an international organization with limited 

oversight capacity. 

Mr. SAMPLER. It is not. We do not have to go to the government 

of Afghanistan and ask to see our bank accounts. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. 

So I will just wrap up here again, just reiterate what I said 

about both of the gentleman that are testifying here today and 

their staffs. We know you are committed and that you are out 

there and you are working very, very hard. We appreciate it. Our 

job is to keep this oversight up. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you for having this hearing, again. As long 

as we make the policy decisions about having this kind of aid and 

assistance go out there, then it is our responsibility to have you 

oversee it and implement it, and our responsibility to make sure 

that you are doing that as much as we can. I think a lot of this 

is going to be, in the long-run, as long as we decide to do that, 

whether or not it is working and what are the results. I guess there 

is no real system we can set up that is pay for success, because 

some of this money has to be put out in order to get that success, 

but I think we have to regularly and steadfastly oversee it and 

make periodic assessments as to whether or not this is a risk worth 

taking and whether our national security interests are being 

furthered or not by that. 

So I thank you, and thank you again, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. I appreciate your ongoing concern 

about this issue. 

Let me just wrap up here. I want to hit just a couple different 

things. 

I am concerned about the automated directive systems, Chapter 

593. This prevents the GAO from removing sensitive, but unclassified materials from USAID’s secure workspace facility, even if it is 

needed for official auditing purposes. 

We trust the GAO. They may be sensitive, but they are unclassified. We expect, I think, auditors to be able to have unfettered access. I don’t know that that policy or directive is consistent with 

the law. We are going to go back and look at that. 

Does USAID provide classified materials to GAO? 

Mr. SAMPLER. Congressman, to the best of my knowledge, we do. 

Again, to reiterate, we provide all the information that they ask 

for, that any of the oversight bodies ask for. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. But I don’t think that is true. 

Mr. SAMPLER. Not always in the form of a document that is actually released in an unredacted form. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. We are not asking to release it. Auditors ought 

to be able to see whatever they want to see. 

Mr. SAMPLER. Absolutely. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. But what you said is in direct contradiction to 

that. 

Mr. Johnson, is this the case? Explain to me what happens. 

When you want to see something that is sensitive, but unclassified, 

what happens? 

57 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, I guess I would start by pointing out that 

this is not always the case. It happens in a few situations. We are 

required to come up to a reading room in some cases, and that does 

put a strain on our resources and becomes more costly for us, as 

well as USAID. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. And the subjective nature to that, the inconsistency of that causes me concern. Even the documents that have 

been provided to Congress have had redactions in them that I 

think were uncalled for. It is something we are not going to sort 

out in the last few minutes here; it is an ongoing concern. 

Mr. Johnson, if there are any particular documents that you specifically need in your possession to do your job—and I am saying 

that broadly for GAO—I would like to know about it if you can’t 

resolve that directly with USAID. But the principle here is an important one. We are supposed to allow the auditors to come in and 

see what they want to see, particularly if documents may be sensitive, but they are unclassified. 

And I do have a problem if GAO or somebody was releasing information that is going to put somebody’s bodily harm in their way, 

but this is not the only agency that they work and engage with; 

there are some pretty darn good sophisticated policies over a host 

of agencies, it is not just USAID. I mean, they do this for every department and agency, essentially. So it is something that I would 

appreciate your working on and we will pay attention to to make 

sure that we are making progress on that. 

Number two, I do think my ranking member here, Mr. Tierney, 

I do think it would be helpful to have Mr. Sopko come here, as well 

as Mr. Shah, and do so together to talk about this broader context. 

It is something that I look forward to doing, and we will have to 

get on the calendar so we can appropriately schedule specific to Afghanistan, but also be able to talk maybe a little bit broader, certainly with Mr. Shah. I find him to be very responsive when I have 

wanted to chat with him before, and I think it would be a healthy 

hearing, particularly as we talk about Afghanistan. We are talking 

about $100 billion that we have spent, so I look forward to doing 

that as well. 

And one thing that Mr. Tierney has persuaded me, I think, over 

the course of time here is the need for internal competency at 

USAID. We have a lot of great passionate people. Nobody is questioning your commitment to the mission here. We were chatting 

here while some other members were asking questions. Mr. Sampler, in particular, we appreciate your passion. You can tell you believe in the mission and what you are doing, and I think you for 

your military service, as well as your service to USAID. 

But we can’t just always rely on third-party vendors all the time. 

The mission of USAID is not we can’t just flip a switch on and off. 

Hopefully we are not engaged in prolonged contracted military engagements over a long period of time, but there does need to be a 

bank of wisdom that we gain, and that we just don’t go out and 

hire, let’s go find another vendor; because we should learn from 

Iraq. We have to learn from Afghanistan if we are going to do this 

better in other countries, in Africa and all across the world. 

And I would join Mr. Tierney in the support of making sure that 

that core competency is developed over a long period of time in a 

58 

broad range of people. I think that pendulum swung one direction 

and then it swung over here to say, oh, let’s just contract it all out, 

but this is probably one agency where you need an internal core 

competency. 

One quick question, then we are done here. How many USAID 

personnel do we have in Afghanistan at this time? 

Mr. SAMPLER. Congressman, the last time I saw a formal report, 

it was 138. We will, by the end of this year, be down to between 

100 and 110. And to put that in context, in 2012 I was up at 387. 

That is U.S. Government direct hire U.S. employees. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Again, maybe you could get back to me on this 

or maybe Mr. Shah could help me answer this, Administrator 

Shah. We are spending more money than we ever have before. We 

are drawing down not only the security personnel, but the people 

on the ground if we are having roughly a third, right, of what we 

had at its peak. I don’t know what the proper ratio is, but we are 

going to spend $20 billion. My State of Utah, we spend about $13 billion in an entire year. 

We have 22,000 State employees, and here we are going to spend 

$20 billion over it is hard to tell what time period and we have just 

over 100 people trying to administer that. I just, physically, I don’t 

understand how that would work. But if you could help us clarify 

that. 

Again, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Sampler, the people, the support staff 

that is here, I thank you for your passion and your work. It is vital, 

it is important. America, as I said at the beginning, has invested 

lives, treasure. It is a very, very important mission. I appreciate 

your passion on this. This is enlightening. There is more information that we would like to glean from you, but we again thank you 

for your service. We thank you for your patriotism, and God bless 

those men and women who are actually out there on the front lines 

in these difficult situations doing the great work. Please let them 

know how much we love and care for them and wish them nothing 

but the best of success. 

With that, we will adjourn this hearing today. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 4:15 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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