Capital suggestion
From the Blog PkColumnist.com: Capital suggestion - USAID is big business. It's a $40-billion cartel; bigger than the GDPs of countries like Jordan, Afghanistan, Iceland, Brunei, Haiti, Nicaragua, Tanzania, Bahrain, Lebanon, Kenya, Ethiopia, Burma, Latvia, Yemen, Cyprus, Uganda, Zambia and Senegal. USAID is big business in Pakistan too. It's a $1.5 billion per year camaraderie: that's more money than OGDC, PTCL, PSO, Indus Motors, Pak Suzuki, Engro Chemicals, Habib Bank, State Life Insurance, Mari Gas, Pakistan Petroleum, Hashoo Group, Atlas Group and Saigol Group collectively make in a year. Washington, D.C., is exactly 11,388 kilometres from Islamabad and there lies Interstate 495, the Beltway ring road that encircles the US capital. And along the Maryland portion of the Beltway are headquartered the "Beltway Bandits" – private US contractors whose principal business is to provide consulting services to the Untied States Agency for International Development. DAI is on Wisconsin Avenue. Winrock International is on Crystal Drive. Care is on I Street NW, Chemonics is on H Street NW, and Deloitte is on 100 S Charles Street. USAID contracted DAI to implement a $45.5 million, three-year FATA Capacity Building Programme to "improve the capacity of FATA institutions to govern." USAID contracted Winrock to implement Empower Pakistan: Energy Efficiency and Capacity Project. USAID contracted Care to implement an $80-million, five-year JOBS project in order to link "the private sector with training institutions to give youth the skills they need to find and succeed in jobs." USAID contracted Chemonics to implement an $89-million, four-year FIRMS project to "develop a dynamic, internationally competitive business sector in Pakistan." USAID contracted Deloitte to implement a $30-million, five-year TRADE project to "improve the trade environment in Pakistan." On Jan 28, the Office of the Inspector General of the US Agency for International Development stated in an audit report that DAI's Programme "has achieved little in building capacity for FATA governmental institutions." But, the DAI staff back on Wisconsin Avenue made tons of dollars. Ashraf Ghani, the chancellor of Kabul University, in a report for the Overseas Development Institute, stated: "About 90 percent of the $1 billion spent on 400 aid projects was wasted." James Lucas, writing for Countercurrents, claims that "seventy percent of our aid is tied to the purchase of American products in preference to those that originate in Afghanistan." According to Roger Bate, director of the Institute of Economic Affairs, the "most important US aid vehicle, the United States Agency for International Development, has failed disastrously in its mission." Bate asserts that "data from USAID's Buy American Report indicates that over the last decade between 70 and 80 per cent of funding appropriations were directed to US sources." Winrock is implementing at least five-dozen USAID-financed multi-million-dollar projects around the globe and is fast becoming USAID's favourite "Beltway Bandit." Care will send a good 70 per cent back to I Street NW, out of the JOBS project, whether the project lives on or dies. Chemonics will send a good 70 per cent back to H Street NW out of the FIRMS project, whether the project lives on or not. To be certain, USAID is now largely a mega contracting agency, whereby its development aid contracting is "uncompetitive," "inefficient," lacks "transparency" and encourages "rent-seeking" behaviour by the "Beltway Bandits." Furthermore, aid from the US that is meant to help Pakistani institutions grow and gain strength has done little more than enriching the "Beltway Bandits." To be certain, what Pakistanis want for themselves and what the Beltway Bandits want for Pakistanis are two completely different worlds. . Read Full Post
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