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America Wasted $160 Million Trying To Get Afghanistan To Use E-Payments (vice.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: The country might be home to America's longest-running war, but the US has spent more time, energy, and money trying to rebuild Afghanistan than it has spent killing the Taliban. American taxpayers send billions to Kabul every year and every year billions disappear into the pockets of Afghan government officials. Electronic payment systems would go a long way to solving that problem. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) wanted to do just that. The Agency figured if it could convince those at corruption hotspots, such as customs agents and border guards, to use e-payment methods, then it might curb the amount of cash those agents pocketed every day. Between 2009 and 2017, USAID spent $160 million and partnered American tech companies to set up e-pay in Afghanistan, according to a new report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). The goal was to get the border guards trained and using the new methods, with an aim of 75 percent of all customs transactions paid electronically by 2017. As of today, less than one percent of those transactions are electronic, SIGAR reports. And custom officials loathe the system. "It's a very long and inefficient process and that's why people do not use this method," one Afghan custom official told SIGAR agents.
peanuts. hold out for more.
"We tried convincing corrupt customs officials to change to a new payment method which would prevent them from stealing large sums of money but they weren't interested. We are at a loss to explain why that might be."
The system is BAU/As Designed. This is how we Americans do socialism. No dirty single payer health care, UBI or (saint's preserve us) "the dole" for us. We use our Military to keep our economy going. Otherwise wealth inequality gets to the point where it all shuts down like it did in the 30s with the robber barons and whatnot. Go google "Eisenhower" and "Military Industrial Complex" if you want to know more.
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"Hey guys, we think you're corrupt and stealing money, so we want you to adopt this new system that will make it harder to be corrupt and steal money."
And we're surprised the plan failed?
No doubt the same contracting firms that built healthcare.gov created the payment system.
The numbers have likely changed, but in 2012 about 50% of all financial transactions were done with cash in the US. For transactions involving amounts of $25 or less, the figure rises to 75% in cash.
Getting a 75% adoption rate in Afghanistan seems over-the-top optimistic from the start.
Why would they act against their own self interest given their situation? In very poor countries where everyone including government officials and police are paid very little, graft is a way of life. It takes a lot more than trying to force an e-payment system to change this type of behavior. There is a reason judges in the United States are paid very well. To make them more immune to bribery. If any given official who's job it is to handle lots of money is not paid well himself, he will tend to skim off the top.
It takes a deep-rooted cultural shift to move away from graft, and the solution is much more complex than simply trying to implement an e-payment system. Also, if, as the quoted official says, it is very arcane and difficult to use (and that is not just an excuse to keep pocking to the loot) that presents even less of an incentive.
A multi-pronged approach has to involve their own government's willingness to truly change the behavior of their officials from the top down, in addition to whatever magic etchnology solution the west is proffering. It is a very difficult thing to do when the culture is deeply embedded in an organization at all levels.
People I trust have flown into certain countries with literal pallets full of cash and were handing it out in bank wrap to local warlords as the price for their forbearance. Like, soldiers - not CIA agents or USAID people.
Regardless if you used a payment card or not, the very act of giving these people money IS corrupt, by any Western standard. But it's how business is transacted there. If you don't pay them, body bags come home unnecessarily. So your definition of 'wasted' money may not be adequate to cover the situation.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Easy Fix. Stop sending money PERIOD. They might get the message.
We ( the US ) "upgraded" to chip technology, and now a transaction which took 2 seconds before takes almost a minute now. The situation is exasperated by the software "upgrades" at the registers which make them run slower now than they did 10 years ago ( they were fast back then ). The situation is so bad at some stores that I've started carrying cash again because of how long a digital transaction takes.
Maybe these Afgan folks are on to something here.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
>> Electronic payment systems
Don't you need "electricity" for those? Seems like "instant fail" for this location...
one more example of why our presence there has nothing to do w/ national security
Amazing, could have been used for so many other things I'm sure!
Putting together great/to the point articles that add value! Tech, Coffee and Travel!
Absolutely retarded.
Afghanistan is less developed than most countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The whole country has around 2 (as in 2.0) miles of railway. The literacy rate is 38%. Whoever expects electronic payments to take off in Afghanistan probably thinks we can eradicate poppy cultivation in exchange for planting corn and raising sheep.
No twist how that would somehow be Trump's fault? Or at least some unrelated stab at him? Come on, you're slipping, Vice!
The American people lost. We only had two choices, Hillary or Trump. There was no way to win.
It's called nation building and regime change. Corporate military industrial welfare. Bush did it. Obama did it. Trump's doing it. (And you sure as fuck better believe Hillary would be doing it).
..."follow the money".
The idea that this makes sense in Afghanistan - where safe running water and electricity are still primary concerns - is idiotic. So idiotic, I strongly suspect corruption.
So...follow the money. Just once, I'd love to see someone actually burrow to the bottom of this, find out WHO (SPECIFICALLY) authorized this, at the behest of whom, and how much $ was involved in 'no-bid' contracts or 'friendly' arrangements.
AND THEN PROSECUTE THEM AGGRESSIVELY.
-Styopa
Problem? This isn't a bug, it's a feature. Look: it channels vast amounts of tax dollars into the pockets of US corporations, while also propping up the government of Afghanistan so as to channel even more tax dollars into the US military-industrial complex. The (cough) "problems" will simply result in more tax dollars flowing into the proper pockets (IOW, not yours, and not mine.)
Meanwhile, the average net worth of a US congress member is over a million dollars, the US education system is starved for funds and the ACA is deemed "too expensive."
Looks to me like the system is doing exactly what it's intended to be doing. The oligarchy gets richer, and most everyone else either treads water or gets poorer. Hurrah! How 'bout those Kardashians, eh?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Faster than cash OR checks
In the US, it used to be faster than cash, but that stopped being true a while ago when payment systems started adding all those stupid questions to the checkout process.
And chip cards are even worse. They seem to take about 1.5 to 2 times longer than swipe cards.
Not in my area. Chip cards take an insanely long time for the machines to process around here.
Wouldn't it be simpler to just prosecute the corrupt officials for corruption? I mean how complex could it be? One undercover agent and then rinse repeat that for a few months until everyone is to scared to take bribery because they don't know if the traveler is an agent. Problem solved.
It is a global method for the Political Parties and Government to spend millions of dollars to make their political partners rich with useless tenders. Get used to it.
If Trump accomplishes nothing, it will be better than the damage Hillary would likely have caused. At least we've shaken things up.
Yes, we lost, and Clinton has pretty much always been an obvious sycophant for the status quo - so yeah, it would have been some kind of loss either way.
But there was an obvious path to losing in a far, far worse way. And that worse way is exactly what we got.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
That's due to the underlying infrastructure, not the technology itself. In Canada, and most of the developed world, chip+pin transactions are virtually instantaneous. For small amounts, the NFC/touch pay is also pretty much instantaneous. It boggles my mind that transactions are so slow in the US... hell, when I travel to Europe, my Canadian chip card is no slower than it is in Canada, so it shouldn't take that long to process.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
The Agency figured if it could convince those at corruption hotspots, such as customs agents and border guards, to use e-payment methods, then it might curb the amount of cash those agents pocketed every day.
So you're saying this foolproof plan didn't work? Huh.
Look up definition of "Pyrrhic victory".
That's actually a very insightful comment. The DNC successfully rigged the primaries to give Clinton the nomination; but it devastated the party and will end Debbie Wasserman Schultz's political career.
That's due to the underlying infrastructure, not the technology itself.
Absolutely correct. I have no technical issues with the idea itself. But as implemented in the US, it's pretty awful. Cash is the fastest and easiest way to buy things here.
Is someone using copy-and-paste hit pieces from Breitbart to create Slashdot summaries now?
#DeleteChrome
Unlike the billions spent on consistently failed causes without even the good premise this one had #drugwar #factoryeducation #TtrillionUnaccountedPentagonSpending
"the US has spent more time, energy, and money trying to rebuild Afghanistan than it has spent killing the Taliban" Rebuilding? Really? 1) Attack an oil-rich country disguising your invasion as "War on Terror". 2) Destroy nearly all of their infrastructure and industry. 3) Give American companies some lucrative contracts to provide services for the US Army and to rebuild the previously destroyed infrastructure, and take over the oil fields. 4) Leave Afghan industry still in ruins. 5) Profit. Ah, America. A true selfless sheriff of the world.
I don't want to do it because:
1. it's hard, because
2.it takes too long
3. I have to wake up earlier
4. I'll have to miss my favorite show
5. because it's my constitutional right and I don't care if it's wrong
and our newest
6. because it target's me as an individual, or/and generalizes my identity.
The old way was insecure, outdated, and cost institutions (see users) millions of dollars a year due to avoidable fraud. This way is somewhat more secure ... period
Wake up everyone. Can you imagine the amount of benefit that our own country would have experienced over the last 15 years if we hadn't dumped $1T of our budget into that godforsaken wasteland?
At least we've shaken things up.
All I can picture is a kid treating his ant farm like an Etch-a-Sketch.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
and it's one of the few things that keep our economy going. The oligarchy was always going to get richer. The Military Industry Complex was the only was anyone could think of to pry some money out of their hands. Before that you just had robber barons and the like paying pennies a day. Eisenhower talked about this as he was leaving office.
The Complex was built to keep our economy going because it's easier to get people to pay for 'defense' when you're redistributing wealth. And like it or not we either redistribute wealth or it naturally accumulates at the top. I don't even need to argue that point, I've got 5000 years of recorded history to back me up on it.
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10-15 year old equipment to run the chips. Nobody wants to pay for new equipment so it's a mess. I've been to places with new terminals (Trader Joes in my neck of the woods) and it's a fraction of a second longer than swiping.
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I hope the people of Slashdot will help me test the translation program I have written. It allows on-the-fly repair of English statements badly-translated from the main Afghani languages and renders them into a more accurate English translation.
I entered the customs official's comment, "It's a very long and inefficient process and that's why people do not use this method," into my software, and this is what I got back:
"When they can't afford proper health care or to send their kids to college, how can I expect US taxpayers to make me a millionaire if they know how much I'm stealing?"
Does that sound about right to you guys? For some reason, the software has trouble with the snicker at the end of the official's words.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
In Europe there is IBAN, while allows you to transfer cash from any account to an account electronically. Over here it isn't so simple. Last time I wanted to pay my landlord it was still by check - what is this? 1880?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Yes, not invading Afghanistan would have been smarter than doing what we did.
Pulling out now would be smarter than what we are going to do.
In 2001, nuking the country until the mountains melted and the sands glowed for 100 years would have been the correct response to an attack on a few thousand civilians emanating from there. The reason why asymmetric warfare has been so popular for the last 75 years or so is that the pinprick attacks weren't mass attacks (mostly) and weren't targeted at civilians (mostly). Therefore, there was no ambiguity about whether nuclear deterrence would be invoked. No sane person is going to nuke the enemy over 50 people getting killed in an engagement in Vietnam or the Middle East. However, if you don't respond with the deterrent when 2500 or so are killed, and the two biggest buildings in the biggest city in North America are destroyed, along with a fifth or so of the headquarters of your armed forces and a (foiled) attack on the President's residence, no one will believe you will ever use that deterrent. It broke the asymmetry and exposed that the emperor had no clothes.
There was a golden opportunity to make an example and shut down the spate of terrorist attacks cold. No country will tolerate attacks emanating from its soil if they feel that that might be the response. Instead, we have the endless war and the constant flow of body bags into Dover AFB. Until we finally have to use the deterrent in a less appealing place. It will happen - and because Bush was either a pussy or didn't even consider the option, those in the future will have to face the very unpalatable choice of nuking an actually important part of the world, and perhaps absorbing a warhead or ten in return as retaliation.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
That's due to the underlying infrastructure, not the technology itself. In Canada, and most of the developed world, chip+pin transactions are virtually instantaneous. For small amounts, the NFC/touch pay is also pretty much instantaneous. It boggles my mind that transactions are so slow in the US... hell, when I travel to Europe, my Canadian chip card is no slower than it is in Canada, so it shouldn't take that long to process.
I agree. Used to when I watched other people use chip cards, most of the delay was due to them not paying attention to the card terminal and answering the prompts quickly or having the cashier to prompt them to do something. When most people (mostly old folks) see anything related to computers, they vapor-lock and are terrified of breaking something. And then they go to Wally World and use the SELF CHECKOUTS which is another eternity of waiting. SMH.
My bank FINALLY issued me a chip card recently and I find it is just as fast or faster than swiping. Referring to the infrastructure, I always shake my head when a restaurant or store has a card machine attached to a dial-up modem. Most establishments have internet access via broadband and the newer card terminals have Ethernet connections, which makes transactions almost instantaneous.
You're messin' with my Zen Thing, man.....
NFC is faster than swiping, get with the times America.
That money should be going into the pockets of home-grown God's honest American government officials!
Requiem for the American Dream
Apparently so! The number and type of questions can vary from store to store (or even in the same store from week to week). When I used one this afternoon, I was asked (excluding the questions required for the transaction) if I had a loyalty card and if I wanted to make a charitable donation. I think the most non-relevant questions I got in one go was four.
It wouldn't be as bad if the process was consistent, so I could learn the proper sequence. But it's not, so I have to actually wait and read every screen that comes up to make sure I'm done.