EU has 'full confidence' in Afghanistan aid spending

BRUSSELS - The EU's new envoy to Afghanistan has said he has "full confidence" in the way EU funds are being spent, despite a US decision to pull billions of dollars over corruption allegations.

"I have full confidence that EU taxpayers money is being spent correctly," the head of the EU embassy in Kabul, Vygaudas Usackas, told EUobserver by phone from the Afghan capital on Tuesday (13 July).

The Lithuanian diplomat, who took up the post in April, noted that an EU decision to postpone the launch of its new €600 million aid programme from May until September is not linked to the US move.

"The postponement of the €600 million package has nothing to do with the American deliberations ...We have decided to wait from spring to autumn to give the Afghans time to define what they want to see for the next three years. That's it."

An international conference in Kabul on 20 July will shed light on how best to use the EU funds, he explained.

About €700-million-worth of EU-sponsored projects are currently ongoing in the war-torn country, he added, saying: "No payments have been stopped or suspended."

A US House of Representatives subcommittee on 30 June blocked a White House request for an extra $3.9 billion (€3.1 bn) in aid after Afghan government corruption allegations came to light in two of the US' most-respected newspapers, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.

Over $3 billion of cash has been flown out of Kabul International Airport in the past three years "packed into suitcases, piled onto pallets and loaded into aeroplanes," The Wall Street Journal reported, leading US investigators to suspect that authorities are siphoning off international aid.

The EU's Mr Usackas said that under present arrangements, 50 percent of EU aid is channeled via open tenders to project managers and the rest is paid to internationally-administered trust funds, such as the World Bank-linked Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund.

The Afghan government at an international meeting in London in January asked the EU to start making some payments directly into the state budget, but Mr Usackas warned that any such move is conditional on reforms.

"We are very keen to see funding channeled through the Afghan government, however, this will certainly be conditional on the Afghan government making progress in the fight against corruption and strengthening financial management," he said.