KABUL (Pajhwok): The US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) in its interim report has said the amount taken out from the Afghan Presidential Palace at the time of the past government collapse did not exceed $1 million.
In its report ‘Theft of Funds from Afghanistan: An Assessment of Allegations Concerning President Ghani and Former Senior Afghan Officials’ to the US congress, SIGAR said the amount taken on the day of government collapse may have been closer in value to $500,000.
Following the collapse of the Afghan government, various media outlets reported allegations that former President Ashraf Ghani and his senior advisors fled Afghanistan with millions of dollars in cash loaded onto the helicopters that carried them from the Presidential Palace to Termez, Uzbekistan, in the afternoon of August 15, 2021.
The SIGAR’s interim report assesses the validity of these allegations.
Although SIGAR found that some cash was taken from the grounds of the palace and loaded onto these helicopters, evidence indicates that this number did not exceed $1 million and may have been closer in value to $500,000.
Most of this money was believed to have come from several Afghan government operating budgets normally managed at the palace.
SIGAR also identified suspicious circumstances in which approximately $5 million in cash was allegedly left behind at the presidential palace. The origins and purpose of this money are disputed, but it was supposedly divided by members of the Presidential Protective Service after the helicopters departed but before the Taliban captured the palace.
SIGAR examined other examples of alleged theft by senior Afghan officials as the government collapsed, including tens of millions of dollars from the operating budget of the National Directorate of Security.
More broadly, although there appears to have been ample opportunity and effort to plunder Afghan government coffers, at this time SIGAR does not have sufficient evidence to determine with certainty whether hundreds of millions of dollars were removed from the country by Afghan officials as the government collapsed or whether any stolen money was provided by the United States.
This is an interim report, as SIGAR is still waiting for responses to questions sent to President Ghani.
If forthcoming, those answers will be incorporated into a final report. This report is part of a series concerning the events leading up to the Afghan government’s collapse.
These reports are responding to requests from the House Armed Services Committee and the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.
SIGAR conducted this work under the authority of Public Law 110‐181, as amended, and the Inspector General Act of 1978, as amended, and in accordance with the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency’s Quality Standards for Federal Offices of Inspector General.
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