The U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) says there are no specific controls in place to ensure funds headed to the war-torn country are not diverted to or misused by the Taliban militants who seized control amid the departure of international troops in August 2021.
In a response to a Congressional request for a report on the Switzerland-based Afghan Fund, SIGAR said in a letter late on January 8 that many questions remain about the situation and its $3.5 billion in funds.
SIGAR said the purpose of the Afghan Fund was to "receive, protect, preserve, and disburse" the assets it holds through Afghanistan's central bank "for the benefit of the Afghan people."
Decisions regarding the disbursement of funds require a unanimous vote of the board of trustees, it added, noting that more than a year after being created, the fund had made no disbursements "for activities intended to benefit the Afghan people."
"Although the fund's unanimous vote requirement could help prevent the fund from engaging in risky activity, there are currently no controls in place that specifically address the issue of Taliban diversion," SIGAR said.
The de facto Taliban government remains largely unrecognized by the international community and has been accused of widespread human rights abuses, particularly against women and girls. It has barred women from working for assistance organizations and has restricted the ability of such organizations to work in the education sector.
A SIGAR quarterly report in October 2023 warned the "the Taliban have effectively infiltrated and influenced most UN-managed assistance programming," raising fears among U.S. lawmakers that the Afghan Fund could suffer a similar fate.
SIGAR said in its letter to Congress that the U.S. Treasury and the State Department will not support transferring the funds back to the central bank, the Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB), in Kabul until it "implements adequate anti-money laundering and countering-terrorist-financing controls."
"The DAB must also demonstrate its independence from political influence and interference, submit to monitoring by a 'reputable' third party, and undergo a third-party needs assessment," it added.
Amid its international isolation because of the Taliban rulers and a severe drought, Afghanistan is teetering on the brink of a humanitarian crisis, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a report on January 8.
"An estimated 23.7 million people -- more than half of Afghanistan's population -- will require humanitarian assistance to survive in 2024 as the country continues to reel from decades of war and grapple with climate-induced crises, recurrent natural disasters, entrenched poverty, and barriers to women’s participation in public life," the report said.
It added that more than $3 billion in "life-saving assistance" will be required in 2024 to avert the crisis.