USAID OIG Afghanistan and Pakistan Oversight Report, April-June ...

Although a performance management plan was approved by the mission, it did not comply with Agencystandards. As a result, sales and employment figures were overstated and methods for collecting data wereinconsistent and unreliable. In addition, the contracting officer’s technical representative did not providesufficient monitoring and oversight, in particular for the procurement process.For instance, the contracting officer’s technical representative did not conduct any site visits to the projectand approved over 20 invoices without knowing whether the material ordered had been received.Consequently, the mission did not discover multiple problems in the process.Audit of USAID/Pakistan’s Community Rehabilitation Infrastructure (Report No. G-391-11-006-P,August 29, 2011)One of the many problems facing Pakistan is poor infrastructure for delivering basic human services such aseducation, health care, water supply, sanitation, electricity, and transportation. To address these issues,USAID/Pakistan signed a 5-year, $150 million cooperative agreement with Winrock International toimplement the Community Rehabilitation Infrastructure Support Program.OIG found that the program had made very little progress toward achieving any of the main goals of theproject. Although tasked with rebuilding or renovating up to 2,000 schools and constructing up to350 small- to medium-sized infrastructure projects, the program was far behind schedule. Specifically, morethan 2 years after signing the agreement, the mission had completed only four minor renovations ofuniversities, six career centers, two design projects, and conducted two feasibility studies and theprocurement of furniture and equipment for a children’s health institute.Part of the program’s lack of progress was due to poor program design. Although Winrock is the mainimplementer, 70 percent of the award’s budget was implemented by subcontractors, who in turn alsoemployed subcontractors. Employing multiple subcontractors led to duplicate layers of constructionoversight. According to the mission, Winrock did not have the staff or technical expertise to monitorsubcontractors’ management of the projects effectively. In the few cases where projects were completed,the mission often did not consider whether the project could be sustained. For instance, $900,000 worth offurniture and equipment was delivered to the Khyber Institute of Child Health in Peshawar, but a year afterits delivery, most of the material remained in storage unused. The institute’s director said that the institutedid not have the funding to support the operations of the facility, adding that he could not even pay themonthly electric bill. By not ensuring that the institute was viable, the mission spent more than $900,000that could have been put to better use.Moreover, an internal control was often bypassed to approve projects above $500,000, which according tothe project’s activity approval document, required written consent. When the new mission director did notwant to authorize the projects, the mission established an unwritten policy to bypass this step and approvednearly $13 million in projects that did not follow the program’s objectives. Furthermore, the missionapproved cost-sharing contributions from the project that cannot be supported.USAID OIG Afghanistan and Pakistan Oversight Report 89