Wasteful Spending on Warehouse in Kandahar

The U.S. military is once again getting a black eye on wasteful spending in Afghanistan. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) is reporting that the U.S. government spent $14.7 million to construct a warehouse in Kandahar, Afghanistan that was never used. The U.S. Army started to build the warehouse facility for the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) in 2009 but it was never completed on time. Although the project was to be completed by mid-2011 it fell behind schedule. Although it was finished the warehouse was never used. The lengthy construction delays resulted in the DLA in citing the contractor for unsatisfactory performance and lack of work progress. The cost to construct the facility continued to increase even after the U.S. Army, USACE, and DLA knew the facility was no longer needed. It seems the DLA could not explain why the project was not terminated. The U.S. Army did not take any action to prevent more than $400,000 in cost increases which occurred after the decision was made that the DLA would not be using the facility - consequently the funds are likely to have been wasted. You can read SIGAR's report at the following link - SIGAR 15-74 Inspection Report and read a news article by The Washington Post (Jul 20, 2015) on this topic.