SIGAR Asks USAID What Afghan Clinic Is Doing In the Mediterranean Sea
▻https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/07/01/watchdog-tries-verify-coordinates-afghan-health-clinics-hilarity-ensues
When the official watchdog overseeing U.S. spending on Afghanistan asked the U.S. Agency for International Development recently for details about the 641 health clinics it funds there, the agency readily provided a list of geospatial coordinates for them.
But when the office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) went looking for the $210 million worth of clinics, the majority of them weren’t there.
John Sopko, the special inspector general, sent USAID a letter on June 25 asking about the clinics.
“Thirteen coordinates were not located within Afghanistan,” the letter reads. Additionally, 13 more were duplicates, 90 clinics had no location data and 189 coordinate locations had no structure within 400 feet.
One set of coordinates was in the Mediterranean Sea.
“My office’s initial analysis of USAID data and geospatial imagery has led us to question whether USAID has accurate location information for 510 — nearly 80 percent — of the 641 health care clinics funded by the PCH [Partnership Contracts for Health] program,” wrote Sopko.
