Afghan aid blunders 'waste millions'

Millions of pounds of British aid to poor and war-torn countries has been wasted because of mismanagement and corruption, an official report reveals today.

An investigation by the National Audit Office (NAO) found a series of expensive blunders by the Department For International Development (DFID) in countries like Afghanistan and Iraq have undermined reconstruction efforts. These included:

* DFID-funded wells are running dry in Afghanistan because no geological surveys were carried out before they were built;

* DFID spent £20m on an Afghan counter-narcotic programme over three years during which time opium production continued to rise;

* Poor monitoring by DFID in Congo meant that bed nets given to pregnant women had not been treated with insecticide and, as a result, cases of malaria increased.

Overall, the NAO found that almost a quarter of DFID's billion-pound conflict zone projects suffered from fraud and financial problems. In Iraq, a £20m project became immersed in corruption when local officials massively overbilled the amount of work days. In Afghanistan, it found that the DFID was failing to "achieve all or most of its objectives" in the region while, at the same time, there was "high staff turnover, limited experience and staffing gaps".

The report commends DFID for carrying out a number of worthwhile international projects, but highlights severe shortcomings.

The investigation found that although the Department spent £256,000 per person of the staff it had based in Afghanistan, much of it going on providing security, many employees in the insecure countries considered that their posting was not "healthy and safe". The dissatisfaction was highest among those involved with Nigeria (59 per cent), Afghanistan (45 per cent) and the Congo (40 per cent).

The NAO noted that there appeared to be no mechanism to ensure experienced staff were dispatched to the danger zones. In Afghanistan, 50 per cent of the civil servants had not served overseas before and, of the rest, only 15 per cent had previously worked in an insecure area.

Some of the problems with DFID projects, said the report, were due to a lack of checks made on local partners in projects. "Inadequate assessment of partners left unidentified gaps in the capacity to deliver," the report concludes. "Which in turn has hampered DFID's ability to spend its funds and therefore reduce impact on the ground."

The NAO concluded: "DFID could be better and faster at learning lessons... DFID needs to apply the lessons from practical experience more quickly; for example by assessing and managing security risks and finding new ways to keep track of programmes when site visits are dangerous."

DFID's aid work has come in for criticism in Afghanistan, in particular, from British military commanders who have charged that failure to provide viable reconstruction projects have made it more difficult to win over the population in Helmand.

Andrew Mitchell, the Conservative spokesman on International Development, said: "The report makes clear that DFID needs urgently to improve its performance in conflict zones like Iraq and Afghanistan. It is clear that DFID needs to learn new skills and to up its game. We need action to improve DFID's performance in backing up the British military effort to win the battle for hearts and minds."

The MP Edward Leigh, chairman of the Commons' Public Accounts Committee, said: "DFID need to get the right people in the right place with the right skills to work effectively in these countries. It does not help that some feel insufficiently protected."

But Ashraf Ghani, a former finance minister for the Afghan President Hamid Karzai and a renowned development analyst, said problems were being faced by DFID because it had been thrust into an unfamiliar role. "DFID was set up to operate in countries which are at peace and they do their job there very well," he said. "But they have been asked to take on a role in Afghanistan which is new and fraught with problems. Because of the security situation in Helmand they are having to depend on contractors and of course this makes it far more difficult to monitor what is going on."