How the Pentagon wasted US$43million building a useless gas station

The US military wasted US$43 million of taxpayer dollars building a natural gas refuelling station in northern Afghanistan that should have cost just US$500,000, the government watchdog for reconstruction in the war-torn country said Monday.

The whopping 8,500 per cent apparent cost overrun highlights some of the endemic problems that have plagued US aid to Afghanistan in the wake of the 2001 American-led invasion.

In a scathing letter to Defence Secretary Ashton Carter, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction John Sopko complained of the project's “exorbitant cost to US taxpayers.”

“In comparison, SIGAR found that a CNG station in Pakistan costs no more than US$500,000 to construct.”

And the inspector general said the US military's Task Force for Stability and Business Operations failed to conduct a feasibility study before starting construction.

“If TFBSO had conducted a feasibility study of the project, the Task Force might have noted that Afghanistan lacks the natural gas transmission and local distribution infrastructure necessary to support a viable market for CNG vehicles,” Sopko added in his letter.