How Western Aid Is Being Spent In Afghanistan

Kabul City shopping centre, which opened in 2005. GETTY IMAGES

Kabul's New Elite Live High On West's Largesse -- The Independent

'Gilded cage' lifestyle reveals the ugly truth about foreign aid in Afghanistan.

Vast sums of money are being lavished by Western aid agencies on their own officials in Afghanistan at a time when extreme poverty is driving young Afghans to fight for the Taliban. The going rate paid by the Taliban for an attack on a police checkpoint in the west of the country is $4, but foreign consultants in Kabul, who are paid out of overseas aids budgets, can command salaries of $250,000 to $500,000 a year.

The high expenditure on paying, protecting and accommodating Western aid officials in palatial style helps to explain why Afghanistan ranks 174th out of 178th on a UN ranking of countries' wealth. This is despite a vigorous international aid effort with the US alone spending $31bn since 2002 up to the end of last year.

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My Comment: Stories like this make me sick.