Afghan fuel station cost $43m, US military report says - BBC News

Afghan fuel station cost $43m, US military report says - BBC News:



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Image copyrightUS Department of Defense

Image captionThe report described the cost of construction of the station as "gratuitous and extreme"

The US Department of Defense has spent $43m (£28m) on a vehicle fuelling station in Afghanistan, according to a recently published oversight report.

The project was intended to show how Afghanistan's natural gas reserves could be used as an alternative to expensive petroleum imports.

However, it cost more than 140 times that of a similar project in neighbouring Pakistan.

The report called the spending "gratuitous and extreme".

The highly critical report was published by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, a group overseeing the use of the approximately $110bn the US has spent in Afghanistan since 2002.

"It's an outrageous waste of money that raises suspicions that there is something more there than just stupidity. There may be fraud. There may be corruption," said John Sopko, special inspector general for Afghanistan Reconstruction.