Small Wars Journal

SIGAR Cites Lack of Oversight in $457M Training Program

Wed, 08/02/2017 - 8:30am

SIGAR Cites Lack of Oversight in $457M Training Program by Paige Williams - Defense News

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, has reported difficulty in identifying whether a $457.7 million program was successful due to a lack of accountability methods.

The Legacy and Afghanistan Source Operations Management program, or ASOM, set out to train and develop the Afghan National Security and Defense Forces’ (ANDSF) intelligence capabilities in 2007. The Army Contract Command, or ACC, awarded one task order and four contracts to Imperatis Corporation, who subcontracted with New Century Consulting throughout 2010 to 2013 to accomplish this.

Specifically, New Century was tasked with developing training courses for Afghan intelligence officers and, in 2013, ACC awarded New Century the contract to implement these training courses and mentor intelligence officers at various sites in Afghanistan.

Per the report, the primary way New Century measured the success of the ASOM program was through successful transfer of intelligence training sites to complete Afghan control at the completion of the program.

By the end of the program in 2016, 59 of the 125 sites were transferred with full readiness to the Afghan government, while the remaining were transferred regardless of their capabilities. SIGAR found that the training courses were not properly administered, as less than half of student instructors, trainers and police intelligence trainers completed the proper curriculum to hold their positions.

Meanwhile, SIGAR found the remaining accountability efforts to be less than effective, with New Century as the primary data collector and often self-assessing themselves as “successful” with a lack of evidence. The report notes mixed results of outside evaluators due to difficulty in finding program candidates from the ANDSF…

Read on.