New York: The Taliban regime in Afghanistan has found a lucrative revenue stream in the United Nations’ humanitarian aid efforts in Afghanistan.
According to US watchdog agency, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), the Taliban is profiting from the UN’s operations by diverting aid, extorting humanitarian workers, and colluding with corrupt UN officials to demand kickbacks.
The Afghan people had benefited from $10.72 billion in humanitarian and development aid from donors between the Taliban’s takeover in August 2021 and the Department of State’s decision to stop sending the majority of aid to Afghanistan in 2025.
Approximately 36% of that amount, or $3.83 billion, came from the United States, which was Afghanistan’s biggest donor until recently. Congressmen and policymakers have questioned how much of the aid, which was paid for by American taxpayers, ended up in the hands of the Taliban.
The official document of US Department of Defense (DOD) revealed that SIGAR repeatedly encountered allegations that UN officials demand bribes in order to issue contracts to companies and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs).
SIGAR conducted independent interviews with ten people who described how senior UN employees in Afghanistan, including foreigners, colluded to take personal advantage of the assistance inflow.
They comprised employees of businesses and non-governmental organizations with UN contracts, a businessman, an Afghan civil society leader, a former senior Afghan government official, and one current and one past UN official.
“You must pay some money for 70% of [UN] contracts.” On condition of anonymity, the director of an NGO with a presence in Afghanistan told SIGAR officials.
An NGO official on condition not to be named informed US watchdogs, the Taliban use state bureaucracy to prevent companies from operating in the country if they do not include a Taliban vice president or shareholder with significant decision-making power.
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According to the official, these individuals are frequently the personal relatives of Taliban officials and receive a portion of the company’s revenues without making any investment. He told SIGAR that a buddy who manages a company that provides fuel to the UN was pushed to accept a family of Interior Minister Siraj-ud-Din Haqqani as a partner, despite not investing any money.
Despite the opposition of other UN agencies and experts, UN agencies occasionally pay the Taliban for security. More precisely, they give money to Badri 313, an Interior Ministry division headed by Siraj-ud-Din Haqqani, who was previously sanctioned by the UN and the US for his role in terrorism. An amount of $10 million reward had been offered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for information that resulted in his arrest.
A civil society activist told SIGAR that a company with major UN contracts is owned by a top Taliban leader, and that the company bribed WFP staff to win the contract. Major UN contractors provide “direct support to the Taliban in terms of cash, food, and even logistical support,” he added.
Employees of the World Food Program (WFP), which has been the biggest source of U.S. aid and help to Afghanistan generally since the Taliban takeover, were at the center of the majority of the accusations SIGAR heard.
It is worth noting that WFP has received almost one-third of all US aid to Afghanistan since the Taliban took over. SIGAR, on the other hand, received reports of identical charges against employees of eight other UN organizations.
The vast magnitude of WFP contracts, which may reach hundreds of millions of dollars, allows the companies that win them to expand in size, position, and influence. For example, a civil society member told SIGAR that two companies with big WFP contracts also supply food to the Taliban military. He said that some WFP contractors are involved in drug and arms trafficking, as well as terrorist financing.
A businessman told SIGAR that one UN agency was collaborating with the Taliban to demand bribes from contractors, while an NGO director felt that financial irregularities were connected to WFP’s involvement with the contractor and the Taliban. According to the NGO director, this establishes what he called “a triangle” of relationships involving Taliban officials, UN officials, and contractor employees.
The company has ties to the Taliban, according to a WFP third-party monitoring officer who told SIGAR that they “pay the Taliban for protection at every stage of implementation.”
According to the verified report, UN officials solicit bribes from companies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) seeking contracts with their agencies. They stated that these are computed as a percentage of the contract at stake, with estimates ranging from 5% to 50%.
A former top Afghan government official indicated that the amount of the contract affects whether senior UN workers participate; for lesser contracts, more junior UN staff collect bribes.
He further maintained, UN workers select successful contractors before the formal bidding process starts. An NGO director told SIGAR that after attending a UN agency-organized pre-bidding meeting, UN workers requested bribes. When his group refused to pay, the staff rejected them from the bidding process.
He described watching in horror as his competitors, whom he claims are paying bribes, have grabbed increasing market share from his NGO. He added that when a firm or NGO refuses to pay bribes to UN employees, UN agencies refuse to compensate them for their efforts. When this causes cash flow issues and limits their ability to operate, they are sacked for “non-performance.”
He went on to explain that UN officials rig bids in favor of specific vendors by informing them ahead of their competitors about new procurement announcements, providing them with inside information about the secret criteria against which bids will be evaluated, and intentionally leaving requirements vague so that they can arbitrarily select the firms paying kickbacks.
