Catch 22 Afghanistan: 15 Months of Fraud, Waste, and Abuse the NGO Way
For his vocational talk, Joe gave a presentation about the time he spent with a nonprofit organization (NGO) in Afghanistan from 2009 - 11. He was a 28-year-old structural engineer who applied for a job to evaluate buildings for their ability to withstand seismic activity.
The main NGO he worked with was International Relief & Development (IRD), which was 100% financed by USAID, a division of the State Department, with a budget of $1 billion to aid the country. The NGO operated under a cooperative agreement, which was much less stringent than a traditional contract.
Areas of waste included: AVIPA, a voucher program that provided seeds to grow wheat during a drought that ballooned to over $360 million; SPR, a road building project during a war that was budgeted $500 million, where over $14 million was unsupported by audit; HRLS, a catch-all of support functions. Joe’s work evaluating buildings operated through HRLS.
On top of the large amounts of money being provided to the NGO, they often were tasked with providing quality control over their own work. USAID eventually suspended IRD, the largest nonprofit contractor in Afghanistan.