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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.
"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."
"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.
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!
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.
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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they mean obama wasted. agreed. he was a waste of time. 8 years worth but trump will clean it up.