Ayaz Gul
VOA News
November 2, 2022
ISLAMABAD — A U.S. government agency Wednesday criticized President Joe Biden’s administration for blocking it from fully assessing about $1.1 billion in U.S. humanitarian aid to Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover in August 2021.
The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, said in its quarterly report that Washington remains the single largest donor to the war-torn South Asian country.
The agency has been reviewing U.S. agencies’ programs in Afghanistan for more than a decade and has been critical of U.S. wasteful spending in the country.
“SIGAR, for the first time in its history, is unable this quarter to provide Congress and the American people with a full accounting of this U.S. government spending due to the non-cooperation of U.S. agencies,” the report said.
“The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which administers the vast majority of current U.S. funding for Afghanistan, and the Treasury Department, refused to cooperate with SIGAR in any capacity.” The State Department “was selective in the information it provided … sharing funding data but not details of agency-supported programs,” the report asserted.
Lack of cooperation was “in direct violation” of the 2008 law that created SIGAR, the report said, adding that some agencies rebuffed the auditor for months.
USAID and the State Department said in response to SIGAR data requests that the current U.S. programming in Afghanistan is “humanitarian and development assistance” and “unrelated to reconstruction activities.”
“Our position is that except for certain specific funds, SIGAR’s statutory mandate is limited to funds available ‘for the reconstruction of Afghanistan.’ Since the Taliban takeover in August 2021, the United States has stopped providing assistance for the purpose of the reconstruction of Afghanistan, and now focuses on alleviating the immediate humanitarian situation in the country,” a State Department spokesman said.
“SIGAR itself has acknowledged that reconstruction programming is different from humanitarian aid, yet SIGAR’s current work does not appear to fall under its statutory mandate to oversee funds “for the reconstruction of Afghanistan.”
The SIGAR report had rejected this claim, noting that there is little to no substantive difference between assistance referred to as ‘reconstruction’ and assistance referred to as ‘development’ or “humanitarian.”
The quarterly report has presented a somber picture of Afghanistan since U.S.-led NATO troops withdrew from the country last year after two decades of war with the then-insurgent Islamist Taliban. It concluded that “current conditions are similar to those under the Taliban in the 1990s.”
The Afghan economy contracted by an estimated 20% since August 2021, while potentially having lost as many as 700,000 jobs and more than of half of Afghanistan’s population (an estimated 24.4 million Afghans) are in need of humanitarian assistance, according to SIGAR.
The report said the Taliban had largely reversed U.S.-backed years of efforts to promote Afghan human rights and independent local media, programs that cost USAID at least $220 million.
SIGAR cited United Nations estimates that more than 3 million girls who previously attended secondary school have been denied their right to access education in the year since the Taliban took power. The ongoing ban on girls’ secondary education may end up costing the Afghan economy up to $5.4 billion in lifetime earnings potential, it warned.
The U.S. agency said the country had lost almost 40% of its media outlets and 60% of its journalists since the Islamist group seized power, citing Reporters Without Borders’ findings last August. Reporters Without Borders is a media advocacy organization widely known as RSF for the French abbreviation of its name.
“Since August 2021, the Afghan media sector has mostly collapsed under the weight of the Taliban’s restrictions and censorship,” the report said.
No country has yet recognized the Taliban administration. The United States and allied nations suspended international financial assistance to Afghanistan and imposed banking sector sanctions immediately after the Islamist group seized power. The measures have pushed the Afghan economy to the brink of collapse and caused an already bad humanitarian crisis in the country to deteriorate.
The Biden administration, however, has since facilitated the flow of humanitarian assistance for the Afghan people and eased some of the banking sector-related sanctions.
8am: After taking over Afghanistan in August last year, the Taliban became the country’s sole ruling force in terms of political and social power. As a result, they began to do things that had previously only occurred in their imaginations. The commanders of this group have chosen beautiful young women and girls for marriage under the guise of carrying on the Prophet of Islam’s tradition. Those commanders who previously had one or two wives have now chosen a third or fourth wife. Elaha Delawarzai, a young woman, made her first public admission in August of this year that a senior Taliban official had raped her and forced her into marriage. 
8am: The mainstream media in Afghanistan which had just started to get on its feet was shaken by the disruptions of 2021 – the takeover of the war-ravaged country by the Taliban. A survey conducted by Reporters Without Borders and the Afghan Independent Journalist Association in December 2021 reported the closure of more than 200 media outlets; rendering about 6,400 journalists jobless after the regime change, reported Afghan Diaspora Network. According to some Afghan journalists, the efforts are part of a well-coordinated strategy focused on exploiting the media vacuum in the country to implant favorable coverage of Pakistan, ANI reported. Though common Afghan journalists working on the ground are not aware of the full plan, they suspect it to be backed by Pakistani agencies. 
Tolo News: The Central Bank said that the banking system in the country is getting back to normal levels, and urged citizens to remain supportive of the banking sector in the country. Haseebullah Noori, press director of Da Afghanistan Bank (Central Bank), said that the banking sector is out of the crisis now. The Central Bank instructed citizens to open their bank accounts and said they can withdraw their money without any restrictions. 
SkySportsNews: Afghanistan are out of the T20 World Cup, after suffering a six-wicket defeat at the hands of Sri Lanka at the Gabba in Brisbane. After electing to bat first, Afghanistan scored 144-8 with openers Rahmanullah Gurbaz (28) and Usman Ghani (27) top scoring. Afghanistan play Australia on Friday, in a must-win match for the Aussies. 
8am: The Taliban have increased the pressure on female students at Badakhshan University for some time now. The officials of the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice department for the Badakhshan province have made it mandatory for female students to wear a burqa, and do not allow girls who do not wear a burqa to enter the university. These double pressures of the Taliban have fed up the female students of this province. They have protested against the imposition of strict restrictions by the Taliban’s authority in front of the entrance gate of the university. The pleas of these students have been severely suppressed by the Taliban, and some of these girls have been beaten up severely. additionally, the Taliban group has warned the girls in the dormitory of Badakhshan University that they have no right to leave the dormitory until further notification.