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The Cost of Nation Building |
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Figures add up. The cost of nation building and reparation in a devastated land, you may find out, is enormous. Money is finite. Wastage remains undisclosed and undetermined. You may need high-level technicians to add up costs, match them with resources and figure out wastage and profiteering as well. When the Afghan interim government was established following the fateful Bonn meeting, the interim authority estimated $ 25 billion as the total need for rebuilding of the country and the nation. Enthusiastic Western world representatives met in Tokyo and decided it was ready to give some $ 5 billion to start the process. The head of the interim authority coming out of the meeting was all smiles. Perhaps the following night he dreamt of nothing but wads of green money finding its way into his dilapidated country. As reality sank in, the money took longer to be delivered and when it was delivered it was unbelievably shorter and even then much of it was indirect. Indirect money meant third party involvement. Take NGOs for an example. NGOs prepare professional project documentation or compete with other similar organizations in bidding for contracts regarding given programs. Over the years they have become experts with project formulation and bidding procedures. Some of these programs are pet-programs of the donor countries where the governments want to impress their own citizens and the citizens of the world by choosing topics of great human attraction. Pet programs do not necessarily reflect priorities of the nations who receive international help. One of the reasons this happens is the inability of the nation that receives help in coming up with feasible and scientific plans for reconstruction. Thus the aid givers trust more experienced NGOs and other middlemen organizations. NGOs have high running costs, salaries for their international and national staff, transportation costs, building and accommodation costs and myriad of other hidden costs that eat up on the total aid packages for the needy nations. In Afghanistan the interim authority and later the transitional authority lacked a fool- proof mechanism for attracting the much needed aid into viable programs and projects. Thus some of the direct aid it received was used for maintaining government machinery that did not contribute to production or to the national income. In other words for the most part, president Karzai's administration paid salaries of his government personnel out of foreign aid. Government ministries only engaged in the routine of day-to-day administration of paperwork. There were very few, if any, development project that were produced by the government. One of the main items of revenue for the state comprised of customs duties levied on imports. Warlords' administrations controlling main border ports in the east, west, north and southwest collected customs duty and kept it for themselves. This continued for many months before the central government negotiated sharing of the public money with the warlords. The country remained economically in distress. On the other hand, illicit production of drugs as a final resort by the farmers for their survival bred a variety of criminal activity such as smuggling, illicit production of heroin, money laundering and using of the enormous income from the drug trade by the warlords and other criminals leaving an extremely small portion for the farmers. For example one kilogram of opium, which is a little over two pounds, brings the hard working farmer about $ 230. Opium is usually bought from the farmers by warlords and international drug smugglers, who pocket huge amounts of profits themselves and at times share it with terrorist groupings. It is estimated that 50 percent of Afghanistan's GNP came from drugs. But this money is outside control of the government and thus is not used for reconstruction or even day to day administration let alone developing of health and educational services which are among urgent priorities of the people. Under these circumstances some countries of the world report to their people of great amounts of money they contribute to the rebuilding of Afghanistan as their part in fighting of terrorism and propagating of democracy and safeguarding of human rights in that country. One report suggested that it costs $ 4,000 to maintain one American soldier for one day in Afghanistan. Simple math would reveal that the cost therefore of some 13,000-coalition forces and some 5000 ISAF International Security Assistance Forces at the above rate would amount to nearly $ 28 billion per year. This is taxpayers' money spent only on the military. Not a single dollar of this amount goes to the reconstruction of Afghanistan, or its nation building exercise. The Provincial Reconstruction Teams, an invention of the US policy provides for very limited number of troops, fully armed with their helmets and weapons, to engage in small civilian projects. Expecting considerable positive effect for this effort seems to be rather naïve. But the figure is huge and can be deceiving in the context of aid rendered to Afghanistan. On the other hand Afghanistan needs a lot of help to see it through its presidential and parliamentary elections this year. According to programs at hand, the upcoming elections require about 4200 polling stations. There is need for over 30,000 personnel to help implement these elections. On top of this there is need for about 30 thousand police force to be in place before the day of the elections to help maintain security. In addition there is need for engagement of the national army and international forces to work hand in hand to keep up the security during elections. All of these require money either directly or through the United Nations. Furthermore, the process of voter registration that has just hit the magic number of one million so far also requires money and material in addition to manpower. And June is creeping up on the whole process. Although authorities hesitate to name money as one of the big problems facing the process, the truth of the fact is that it is. It would therefore be wise, if the United States, the United Nations,
all of the NGOs and the Afghan transitional government established a
solely financial commission comprising of experts to study all aspects
of financial contributions to Afghanistan and how best to meet her needs
regarding its reconstruction and nation building and ensuring creation
of a democratic society. 2/23/04 |