WASHINGTON – Sen. Chuck Grassley today received formal confirmation that the watchdog for U.S. military spending in Afghanistan will audit the hundreds of millions of dollars spent by the Defense Department’s Task Force for Business and Stability Operations (TFBSO). Grassley requested a formal, comprehensive audit after the watchdog, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), documented numerous instances of excessive spending by the now-defunct task force and a shoddy record of projects. The task force oversaw a compressed natural gas station that might have cost as much as $43 million and approved private housing in high-end villas rather than less expensive military housing.
?SIGAR agreed to conduct two audits, a financial audit to assess “internal controls, compliance, corrective actions taken on prior findings and recommendations, and outstanding liabilities,” and a performance audit that “will assess the strategy, planning, interagency coordination, oversight, and outcomes” of the task force’s programs and activities in Afghanistan.
“These audits are necessary,” Grassley said. “Someone needs to document whether the task force has the receipts and records to support its spending. Otherwise, the American taxpayers have no way of knowing whether they got what they paid for or whether there was outright fraud or theft.”
SIGAR’s letter to Grassley is available here.
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