More than a year after demanding that the Administration to take action, U.S.
Senator Claire McCaskill today released the following statement after the appointment of a new Special Inspector General for Afghanistan
Reconstruction (SIGAR) to combat waste, fraud, and abuse of U.S. taxpayer
dollars in Afghanistan:
“The White House took too long to fill this
critical position, but now that we have someone ready to jump in, it offers us a
new chance at accountability. As we work to cut spending and rein in the
national debt, billions of taxpayer dollars have been lost in Afghanistan
through waste, fraud, and abuse—and that’s why it’s so important that the
taxpayers have a dedicated set of eyes and ears over the massive amounts of
money being spent there.”
In November, McCaskill—a former State
Auditor and prosecutor—strongly urged President Obama to appoint a new Special
Inspector General and told the President that such an appointment should be a
top priority. That letter followed an earlier letter sent last May, in which
McCaskill led a bipartisan group of Senators and Representatives who asked President Obama to fill the Special Inspector
General position, which has remained vacant since January 2011.
More recently, McCaskill used a Senate hearing
to chastise the White
House for leaving such positions vacant for so long, listing the agencies
which lacked Inspectors General: “We do not have SIGAR, we do not have DOD, we
do not have State, we do not have AID, in terms of an appointed and confirmed
Inspector General… I find it appalling that these people have not been
appointed. And there is a long list of qualified people to hold these jobs… And
I do not understand why this is taking so long. If you look at the world of
Inspectors General, and the money that’s being spent—how these positions can go
vacant for this period of time is beyond me. And I’m hoping that the White House
gets busy.”
The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan
Reconstruction position was created by Congress in 2008 with the purpose of
detecting and preventing waste, fraud, and abuse in Afghanistan.
McCaskill repeatedly raised concerns regarding the poor performance of
the man who first held the position, Arnold Fields. She went on to successfully
call on the President to remove Fields as Special Inspector
General but the post was subsequently left vacant until today.
As Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on
Contracting Oversight, McCaskill has held multiple hearings investigating the
mismanagement of reconstruction contracts in Afghanistan. Last year, the
Commission on Wartime Contracting—a panel created through legislation by
McCaskill—concluded that the U.S. has wasted as much as $60 billion through
contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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