Afghanistan's National Power Utility: Commercialization Efforts Challenged by Expiring Subsidy and Poor USFOR-A and USAID Project Management.

摘要

Since 2008, the Afghan government has identified improvements to its energy sector as a top priority, including increasing revenues and reducing losses from power generation through distribution. Collectively, these initiatives are referred to as commercialization. Since 2009, the U.S. Government has obligated almost $88 million to help the Afghan government commercialize Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat (DABS), its national power utility. DABS operates and manages electric power generation, import, transmission, and distribution services throughout Afghanistan. U.S. Government projects funded by U.S. Forces-Afghanistan (USFOR-A) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) focus on helping DABS increase cost recovery, reduce losses, and build its capacity to manage, operate, and maintain a national power system. To date, USFOR-A and USAID have focused their efforts in Kabul, Kandahar, and Helmand provinces, and the first objective focuses on the self-sufficiency of DABS-Kabul because there is a lack of reliable, available data for other directorates -- such as data on revenues and losses. This report is the second of two reports on U.S. efforts to assist in the commercialization of DABS. SIGAR evaluated the following: (1) the extent to which U.S. assistance contributed to DABS-Kabul's goal of becoming self-sufficient, and (2) USFOR-A and USAID management of commercialization projects. SIGAR recommends that the Commanding General for USFOR-A Regional Command-Southwest work with DABS to finalize the installation schedule for the equipment. SIGAR also recommends that the USAID Mission Director for Afghanistan require that USAID-funded systems are coordinated with DABS Corporate and consistent nationwide. In commenting on a draft of this report, USFOR-A concurred with the recommendation. USAID also concurred, but disagreed with some findings. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers provided technical comments. Agency comments are reproduced in the appendices.