US plans audit office in Pakistan

Yusuf

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ISLAMABAD: United States plans to setup a separate office for auditors in Pakistan to monitor financial assistance programmes under Kerry-Lugar-Burman bill and Coalition Support Fund.

The audit team will also investigate matters of unfair use of funds, corruption and money wastage.

According to the US State Department, Congressional Budget Justification 2011, US Office of Inspector General will setup this additional satellite office in Islamabad.

The office in Islamabad will be in addition to a full fledge facility of Middle East Regional Office available in Amman, Jordan.

The aim of setting up an office is to improve management, strengthen integrity and accountability and ensure the most efficient, effective, and economical use of resources including contractor performance and procurement issues, as well as security and management inspections.

Two temporary auditors, program analysts and one local person will be hired for the US auditor’s office.

The staff would also provide oversight for Department-funded programs in the Fata and evaluate and assess the cross-border coordination actions.—DawnNews
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect...an/16-us+plans+audit+office+in+pakistan-hs-05

Diplomatic way of saying we dont trust you idiots and we have to set shop in your place to make sure you use our money to fight the WOT and use it for other intended purpose and not to finance your ISIs plans.
 

ajtr

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USA is becoming intelligent thats why its opening the audit office in pakistan.Past 8 years or so Usa used to give aid dollars without any audit which used to directly go into the general's pockets.with gross inadequate substantiation, over-billing bu pak army in order to generate fake expenditure to milk uncle.Following dawn article substantiate this.


Pakistan loses $400m to ‘enhanced oversight’

ISLAMABAD: Over $400 million in reimbursement claims by Pakistan under Coalition Support Fund (CSF) for 2008 have been rejected by the United States because of new guidelines requiring ‘enhanced oversight and accountability’.

Total claims for 2008 were $1.4 billion, but Pakistan got $997 million in reimbursement, whereas the remaining claims were disallowed on grounds of “inadequate substantiation, over-billing” and other objections, sources told Dawn.

About $548 million were initially paid and the rest was deferred. It took the Pentagon another 18 months to settle the deferred claims. While paying $349 million last week in settlement of all claims from 2008, US officials reportedly tendered a callous excuse for the long delay: accounting problems.

Claims worth over $2 billion under CSF for 2009 are still pending because of intense scrutiny of Pakistan’s claims. After the cuts in payments for 2008, there are renewed fears in Islamabad that demands for last year would meet a similar fate.

The claims pertained to expenditures incurred by Pakistan on food and clothing of troops; fuel; transportation; communication; medical charges; helicopter operations; destroyed paraphernalia; and repair and maintenance of equipment. Under a bilateral agreement between ministries of defence, US repays ‘legitimate expenditures’ incurred in support of its military operations.

Pakistan’s senior military commanders, peeved at the ‘penny-pinching’ CSF reimbursement procedures, say these were distressingly impertinent to Pakistan’s over 30,000 casualties in the war on terror.

The problems in repayment have compelled Islamabad to consume its trivial reserves for continuing its logistic and operational support for American counter-terrorism operations while cutting on its own development needs and compromising its war preparedness, senior government officials and military officers suggested during background interviews.

BITTERNESS IN ISLAMABAD: The inordinate delays in clearing deferred amounts and linking of the issue by the US to issuance of visas to its diplomats and embassy staff have intensified frustration in Pakistan. The release of latest tranche was made possible only after Islamabad issued most of the requested visas.

“It is too cold-hearted of the US to stress on the money it gives to Pakistan, but disregard its sacrifices,” a military commander said. The Americans in every interaction try to make their Pakistani interlocutors realise that ‘they were doing great favour to Pakistan’, he added.

About 2,500 Pakistani soldiers lost their lives in the war on terror while another 8,000 were injured, many of them crippled and maimed for life. Additionally, some 22,000 civilians were killed or injured by militants.

“Pakistan has suffered more casualties than the combined tally for troops from 43 countries fighting in Afghanistan,” another general noted, adding the government had to compensate the families of those killed or injured and look after their welfare.

“In those terms, this huge casualty figure for civilians and military men translates into massive economic burden on government’s treasury.”

Another senior official said Washington was indifferent to these realities and saw CSF only as a generous military support programme and an incentive for keeping Pakistan armed forces out on American counter-terrorism mission.

Additionally, Pakistan’s road infrastructure has begun crumbling because of heavy equipment and supplies for US operations in Afghanistan shipped from Karachi to Chaman and Torkham border. About 58,000 heavy US containers, government figures show, were ferried through Pakistan without any charge.

There had been little acknowledgement of Pakistan’s support for logistics, a senior officer looking after the security of shipments regretted, adding that the focus had been on terrorist attacks on US consignments passing through Pakistani territory.

Sharing statistics on US losses because of those attacks, he said they were as low as 0.1 per cent of the total volume of goods carried through Pakistan.

Feelings of resentment in the army, analysts believe, are serious for US strategists because their success in Afghanistan critically depends on wholehearted support of Pakistan military.

US Ambassador Anne W. Patterson, in a statement, looked forward to working closely with Islamabad for reconciling outstanding CSF claims for 2009. She attributed the delays to inability of the embassy personnel, engaged in processing the payments, to obtain Pakistani visas or get them extended.

US repays ‘legitimate expenditures’ incurred in support of its military operations. Pakistan’s senior military commanders, peeved at the ‘penny-pinching’ CSF reimbursement procedures, say these were distressingly impertinent to Pakistan’s over 30,000 casualties in the war on terror.

The problems in repayment have compelled Islamabad to consume its trivial reserves for continuing its logistic and operational support for American counter-terrorism operations while cutting on its own development needs and compromising its war preparedness, senior government officials and military officers suggested during background interviews.
 

prahladh

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what a sorry state these guys (PAKISTAN) are in ? An Audit office to check unfair usage of funds !! What's next..Islamabad as collateral!
 
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good thing this office is coming 9 years late they had their fun for 9 years now USA wants to know where the money is going.LOL
 

sayareakd

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does this means that US auditors will inspect the Pakistani location and check the funds and weapons ???

their goes Pakistani sovereignty.
 

Yusuf

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Nah mate. For far too long the US has been painted blind by the pakistanis. The US now wants to make sure it's money is utilized for the purpose it was given for. They have put this up to check the authenticity of the claims pakistan forwards to the US. In short the US is calling the pakistanis cheats which they are.
 

sayareakd

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Actually pakistan has being diverting funds, weapons and material for preparation of war with India since long, all the successive military leaders of US have look the other way, now things are as it appears is changing.
 

ahmedsid

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what a sorry state these guys (PAKISTAN) are in ? An Audit office to check unfair usage of funds !! What's next..Islamabad as collateral!
Awesome retort, Their Presidential Palace must be mortgaged! What a state to be in! In all honesty, its a crazy Idea of a state! Borrowing money, misusing it continuosly against a neighbour, killings its citizens and now the Parent Donor setting up accounting offices! what next?? Anything can be expected!
 

ajtr

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CSF reimbursements

Pakistan’s efforts to fight terrorism are running into financial troubles on account of a trust deficit between Islamabad and Washington. The US has refused to reimburse fully the claim made by Pakistan from the Coalition Support Fund for 2008.

Under an agreement between the two governments the US is required to repay Pakistan “legitimate expenditure” incurred in support of its military operations. But over the years this process has not only slowed down, it has also become complex leading to delays and shortfalls.

For 2008, Pakistan has received only $897m for its claim of $1.4bn. What one can make out from the report of the General Accountability Office is that the US Defence Department has tightened its guidelines to validate the reimbursement claims emanating from Islamabad. Comments such as “inadequate substantiation” and “compensation for collateral damage not reimbursable” pepper the report.

The question is: why? It seems that on several occasions Pakistan has failed to provide proper documentation and receipts while in other cases it has pressed for claims that are, at best, only very distantly related to the programme in question. And yet the fact of the matter is that the sums involved are a mere rounding error for the US: what after all is half a billion for a country that spends hundreds of billions of dollars yearly on its defence?

It is telling that the rate of rejection of claims has risen to 35 per cent for 2008 compared to a mere two per cent for January 2004 to August 2006. What appears to be behind the get-tough approach, then, is more than good accounting standards. The CSF appears to have become another lever for the Americans to press the Pakistanis in a difficult relationship fraught with mutual suspicion. The impact, though, should not be exaggerated: cooperation between the two countries is continuing on many other fronts and fiscally the IMF is still taking a benign view of Pakistan’s escalating budget deficit. And yet it is totally unnecessary: Pakistanis using delay tactics over visas; Americans choking CSF flows — both sides need to stop needling the other on peripheral issues.
 

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