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Afghans Lied To Get More Dollars For ‘Ghost Schools’

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Ethan Barton Editor in Chief
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Afghan officials may have tricked a U.S. agency into giving Afghanistan hundreds of millions of dollars for education programs, a government watchdog charged Thursday.

At the center of the issue are statistics cited by U.S. Agency for International Development officials in claiming their agency’s education programs in Afghanistan were successful, but they were unable to support the data when its was challenged by auditors for the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. Officials working for former Afghan President Hamid Karzai produced the data.

Education ministers under President Ashraf Ghani now claim the Karzai administration falsified the data, SIGAR John Sopko told  USAID Acting Administrator Alfonso Lengardt in a letter made public today.

“These allegations suggest that U.S. and other donors may have paid for schools that students do not attend and for the salaries of teachers who do not teach,” Sopko said.

The data was misrepresented by the Karzai officials to obtain more funding from international donors. The Ghani ministers also charged that the previous administration embezzled money and interfered with university entrance exams.

USAID officials admitted they couldn’t validate the data such as how Afghan school enrollment jumped from 900,000 in 2002 to 8 million in 2013. Nevertheless, USAID gave Afghanistan $769 million for the education programs.

“SIGAR believes the allegations about ghost schools, ghost students and ghost teachers call for immediate attention,” Sopko wrote.

Sopko asked that USAID officials explain by June 30 how they will investigate the allegations and estimate how much U.S. money was spent on fake schools. Sopko also asked the agency to say how such data will be verified in the future.

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