The Myth of the $43-Million Gas Station in Afghanistan by Jeff Goodson, War on the Rocks
Last month saw another missile launched by the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR). In doing so, SIGAR renewed its attack on what was arguably the most catalytic wartime agent for economic development since the Marshall Plan, the Defense Department’s Task Force for Business and Stability Operations (TFBSO). This time, after a long string of SIGAR attacks on other strategic development projects, the target was a TFBSO-funded compressed natural gas (CNG) fueling station.
The CNG project was a small but critical part of the billion-dollar, multi-donor, public–private effort to bring Afghanistan’s giant Shebergan gas field back into production. That ongoing effort includes the full spectrum of gas production, processing, transmission, and distribution infrastructure, along with market development, capacity-building, and establishment of the legal, regulatory, and policy frameworks to make it all work…