Administration identifies potential recipients of civilian assistance in Pakistan

By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff

The $7.5 billion that the US government has pledged to spend on civilian assistance in Pakistan over the next five years is slowly making its way to the troubled country, after months of debate over how the money should be spent and how to ensure that it is properly used.

At a hearing called by Rep. John Tierney, a Salem Democrat who chairs the House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, administration officials reported that about 20 Pakistani organizations and government agencies have been screened by accountants as potential recipients of the funds. About 50 more organizations are expected to be declared eligible in the coming months.

The organizations that have already been screened include the Higher Education Council, the government of the North West Frontier Province, the Benazir Bhutto Support Fund and the FATA Secretariat, according to Dan Feldman, Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

But Tierney and others expressed concern that the checks on corruption and mismanagement may still be too weak in Pakistan to handle the influx of US cash.

“We must make certain the administration’s new strategy will not send more money through weaker systems – systems that lack the internal controls developed with time and experience,” Tierney said in his opening statement, although he made clear that he supports the aid. Tierney has previously complained that huge amounts of US aid to Pakistani military could not be accounted for.

Vermont Democrat Peter Welch echoed Tierney’s concerns.

“If there is not a mechanism that is solid, we are going to have Iraq all over again,” he said.

But attempts to mandate accountability for the funds have drawn a strong reaction from Pakistanis. Language in the bill caused a firestorm in the fall when some Pakistani institutions, particularly the military, took issue with what they claimed were provisions that eroded Pakistan’s sovereignty.

The aid, which is known in Pakistan as the “Kerry-Lugar” funds, after Massachusetts Senator John Kerry and Indiana Senator Richard Lugar who sponsored the bill, will make Pakistan among the top recipients of US economic aid. The $1.5 billion that Pakistan is authorized to receive annually in nonmilitary aid is about half of what Afghanistan is slated to receive this year, but more than the estimated $1 billion that the State Department expects to spend on aid to Iraq in 2010.

But spending the money effectively is a huge challenge, especially in the fiercely independent Federally-Administered Tribal Areas, where Pakistan’s government has made few inroads. In 2007, the Bush administration announced that it would spend $750 million in FATA, but so far, only $220 million of that money has been spent, James Bever, USAID Afghanistan Pakistan Task Force Director, told Tierney today after the hearing.