The U.S. government is hoping to improve oversight of contractors working in Iraq and Afghanistan by requiring them to submit information to a centralized database, but at least one agency has been stubbornly resisting the change.
The Synchronized Pre-deployment Operations Tracker database, or SPOT, is designed to help agencies including the State Department, Defense Department, and the U.S. Agency for International Development work together “to better manage and oversee contractors,” according to John Hutton of the General Accounting Office. But USAID, whose work in Afghanistan has not exactly been a shining pillar of progress, has been slow to warm to SPOT to track its contractors in country.
While all the agencies are still adjusting to the centralized contracting tracker, and face challenges collecting the necessary data, the GAO contends that implementing SPOT will lead to better-informed decisions on resource allocation. Dynamic statistics, such as personnel casualties, are particularly tough to track, according to Hutton, director of acquisition and sourcing management at GAO.
SPOT promises some intriguing statistics. “Data to be collected includes the contract number, a brief description, contract value, as well as specific data on individual contractor personnel,” Hutton said. But contracting transparency isn’t always a prime concern in the fog of war.
State, Defense and USAID finally agreed to coordinate efforts to keep tabs on contractors in July 2008, only after poor planning and fraudulent contracts had already cost the American public billions of dollars since the start of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Now, USAID’s efforts in Afghanistan are at risk. If the federal government doesn't take USAID's mission in Afghanistan more seriously, any efforts to help stabilize the region may become that much more difficult. It’s not as if USAID shortcomings have gone undocumented, either.
In a June 2004 report (pdf) to a Congressional committee, the GAO found that in August 2002 USAID had formulated an “interim strategy and action plan” for getting the country on the track to recovery. The plan, however, “did not clearly articulate measurable goals or provide details on time frames, resources, responsibilities, objective measures, or means to evaluate progress.”
It seems impossible that it took four years to agree not to a plan, but rather only on ways to better supervise an insufficient plan? But the pen had been diced by the sword and accountability wasn't just passé, but unpatriotic.
So why then, for the love of George Marshall, is USAID still neglecting to agree to the SPOT-centric coordinated oversight plan?
The answer, it seems, is that USAID has woefully insufficient administrative infrastructure in Afghanistan. The agency only has seven “direct hire contracting officers” in Afghanistan to oversee 10,000 “implementing personnel,” according to USAID senior procurement officer Maureen Shauket's April 1st testimony before a House subcommittee (pdf). Clearly, USAID needs to bolster its staff before taking bold steps in any direction.
Furthermore, USAID does not require its contractors working in Afghanistan to obtain Letters of Authorization (LOAs). When the Department of Defense required its contractors to obtain LOAs for contractors working in Iraq, oversight of contractors vastly improved primarily because these letters were generated by SPOT. Unfortunately for watchdog enthusiasts, the need for these LOAs arose from security concerns, which do not apply to USAID's work in Afghanistan.
“USAID officials stated that one reason they do not yet require contractors in Afghanistan to use SPOT is that they do not need LOAs since they generally do not take U.S. military transport or access U.S. facilities,” said the GAO’s Hutton.
The consequences of this ongoing abject failure in Afghanistan are of the utmost importance. Though the situation in Iraq has improved slowly but surely, conditions in Afghanistan only seem to be getting worse. The inability of NATO forces to convince Afghans to reject fundamentalist militancy is contributing to instability in Pakistan—a country whose nuclear arsenal and political uncertainty is causing the world's bowels to loosen in fear.
Expanding Afghanistan's war-torn economy, something that USAID should be doing with aplomb, would improve security—not only in the country, not only in the region, but throughout the entire world. It would help the cause if USAID found a way to get its contractors in Afghanistan to submit to this cross-agency oversight effort.
“When SPOT is fully implemented, agencies have an opportunity to use this information to help address a number of longstanding contract management challenges,” Hutton explained. “Using such information can provide decision makers with a clearer understanding of the extent they rely on contractors, improve planning, and better account for costs.”
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