Glitch: US audit detects fault in Pakistan aid data

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A US government system that collects and stores data about civilian assistance to Pakistan is malfunctioning and providing inaccurate information, reveals an audit report of the US Office of Inspector General (OIG). “[The system] PakInfo shows obligated funds for government-to-government assistance projects totaling about $1.8 billion, whereas Phoenix [another database] shows almost $1.4 billion,” according to the audit of USAID’s Pakistan government-to-government Assistance Programme. The OIG conducted the audit to determine whether the USAID Country Office was managing the government-to-government assistance programme to achieve development goals, such as creating improved opportunities for work and education, increasing stability in certain areas, and improving the economic status of Pakistanis.

Under the Kerry-Lugar Act, the United States has committed $7.5 billion in civilian assistance to Pakistan. However, the obligations and disbursements remain far below the commitments thus far. Of $1.4 billion obligations made so far, Washington has disbursed $960 million in government-to-government assistance. The civilian assistance that is flowing outside the government channels is in addition to the aid disbursed through official channels. “The PakInfo project database contains inaccurate information,” the audit noted. The findings strengthen the views of Pakistani authorities who have been challenging the US claims on account of the amount the US pledged and the actual disbursements towards Pakistan. The figures that the US Embassy in Islamabad provides always remain higher than what the Economic Affairs Division reports. The audit noted that the system was not functioning correctly two years after the mission started developing it. The Programme and Resource Management Office is responsible for maintaining the information in PakInfo, including the amount of funding for each project – project start and end dates, and project results data.

The second system is Phoenix, which also collects data on financial obligations and disbursements for all America’s government-to-government projects. The audit noted that obligated amounts for some projects in Phoenix exceed the obligations reflected in PakInfo. For instance, although assistance for the Satpara dam project is $26 million, PakInfo shows a total funding of $19 million. “Inaccurate data can lead to uninformed and bad decision-making which, in turn, can affect the outcomes of government-to-government assistance projects,” observed the US auditors. They added that a pattern or practice of storing and reporting inaccurate data, even if inadvertent, can reduce users’ confidence in the data. The findings showed that some projects’ start and end dates in PakInfo don’t tally with those in project activity agreements. For example, the first activity agreement for the Municipality Services Programme in Sindh was signed in January 2011, while the agreement was executed in April 2012. However, PakInfo shows the start date as February 2012 instead of January 2011. PakInfo groups together some projects that have different activity agreements and are managed by different offices. Doing so makes it difficult to understand the correct funding amount for each project, the auditors noted. The OIG has recommended implementing a plan with a timeline to validate the PakInfo data, and reconcile them with the data in Phoenix. The OIG also suggested implementing a plan with a timeline for PakInfo to become operational.