Start a petrol station in Afghanistan, word millionaire
Posted on 02-11-2015 at 20:04 by autoblogger – 25 Comments”
A bizarre story of the American army, that a gas station in Afghanistan has helped to build.
The info comes from a new report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), which claims that the building of an Afghan gas station about 42 million dollars has cost! Similar stations elsewhere in the country for around $ 500,000 built. The costs are thus more than 80 times exceeded. And the worst: the Americans have no idea where the money is remained.
The Department of Defense claims that it is unable to provide an explanation for the high cost of the project or to answer any other questions concerning its planning, implementation, or outcomes. In fact, in response to my request for information, the Principal Deputy Under Secretary for Policy stated in June 2015 that the March 2015 closure of TFBSO resulted in the Office of the Secretary, “no longer possessing the personnel expertise to address these questions or to assess properly the TFBSO information and documentation retained by WHS in the OSD Executive Archive.”
The petrol station was part of a project of the Task Force for Stability and Business Operations (TFBSO), a division of the Pentagon that was originally founded to help in the reconstruction of Iraq. That project was extended in 2010 to Afghanistan. The petrol station was intended to compressed natural gas (CNG) to the dowels as a fuel for Afghan cars. The installation of a CNG installation cost in Afghanistan for about $ 700 per car. According to other sources even around $ 800. Small problem: the world Bank estimates that the average annual salary in Afghanistan on 690 dollar is..
In theory it was still quite a nice idea, since there are a number of large aardgasvelden in Afghanistan are found. The reality however, is that there is no Sound as crazy to his annual salary piece to be stored in a CNG tank. In addition, it was because of the security situation very difficult for the gas to the whole country to carry. A pipeline from the gas fields to Kabul, the afghan capital would be almost a billion dollar of cost, so that was not an option.
But why the cost for the gas station have reached 42 million, which is know to no one. The build-command in Afghanistan was awarded to the firm of Central Asian Engineering, there are about 3 million dollars for expecting. This company has probably done good business, as well as some local entrepreneurs. All thanks to the Us army:
The Task Force spent $42,718,739 between 2011 and 2014 to fund the construction and to supervise the initial operation of the CNG station (approximately $12.3 [million] in direct costs and $30.0 [million] in overhead costs).