Afghan Leader Tells U.N. Agency to Relinquish Control of Funds, Officials Say

KABUL, Afghanistan — In his drive to rid Afghanistan of mismanagement and waste, President Ashraf Ghani has chosen a large and rather unexpected target: the United Nations Development Program.

Expressing his frustration in recent meetings with aid donors and officials, Mr. Ghani has demanded that the agency turn over control of a nearly $500 million fund that bankrolls the salaries of Afghanistan’s police officers, according to Afghan and Western officials, and has set a six-month deadline for it to do so.

In private, the officials said, he has called the fund, the Law and Order Trust Fund of Afghanistan, a “cash cow” for the agency, which charges 4 percent to manage the money.

At that rate, the fund earns more than $20 million a year, money the Afghan government as well as donors are eager to see land in the pockets of police officers on the front line. The president is so frustrated with what he sees as the agency’s resistance to change that he recently threatened to throw the head of the development program out of the country, the officials said.

Boaz Paldi, a spokesman for the United Nations Development Program in New York, said the fate of the fund was still in talks with Afghan officials and a final agreement was close. He added, “U.N.D.P. has not received any formal request from the government of Afghanistan pertaining to staff in its Afghanistan country office.”

The fact that Mr. Ghani is seemingly upending a long-term relationship with the central aid organization in his country illustrates the extent to which relationships at the end of the war are being rewritten. In his quest to redirect the nation — or, his critics say, consolidate power — Mr. Ghani has made clear that even storied institutions like the United Nations are not beyond reproach.

Officials who know Mr. Ghani say his actions are rooted in a deep mistrust of the agency that dates back to his time as finance minister, and also reflect a personal distaste for some groups he sees as infringing on Afghan sovereignty.

The trust fund has fallen under intense international scrutiny and criticism in recent years. Internal and external investigations have raised questions about oversight of the fund, which has handled the delivery of more than $3 billion in security aid since 2002. Some governments have even suspended payments to the program out of frustration with its management.

The most recent disagreement started in October, when Mr. Ghani asked the agency to come up with a plan to shift ownership to the Afghan Interior Ministry. Staff members for the trust fund and an Afghan deputy interior minister were assigned to draft a plan. But last week, when Mr. Ghani came to review the proposal, he found that instead of outlining a plan to phase out United Nations authority, it suggested a three-year extension, according to two Western officials briefed on the meeting.  Read More at NYTimes

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