U.S. needs to push ahead with handover of Afghan aviation: watchdog

NEW YORK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - After spending more than $500 million over 12 years rebuilding Afghanistan's four international airports, the United States is still running Afghan civil aviation and needs to ensure it hands over control, a watchdog agency said on Friday.

John Sopko, head of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), said international funds had helped rebuild Afghanistan's civil aviation system but it had been hard to train enough local air traffic controllers.

had delayed any handover but now was time to ensure there was a transition to local teams.
Sopko, a former prosecutor who took on the mafia in the United States, has earned notoriety in Kabul and Washington for denouncing how much of the $107 billion the United States has spent rebuilding Afghanistan since 2001 has been frittered away.

n his report he recommended the U.S. Secretary of State tries to ensures the Afghan government awards a new airspace management services contract before the current interim contract with the U.S. Department of Defense expires this September.

"If Afghanistan is able to pay for the full cost of a future

contract for airspace management services, it would demonstrate an increased capacity, at least in this area, to take responsibility for its own affairs," Sopko said in the report.

Sopko has previously said the U.S. government needs to change the way it operates and must set more strict conditions on its help and keep a much closer eye on the money.

The U.S. congress set up SIGAR in 2008 to provide independent oversight of U.S. funds in Afghanistan.

From 2003 to 2008, the World Bank reported spending $24.8 million on Kabul International Airport's runway and another $7.4 million to provide communications and traffic control equipment. - Read More

U.S. needs to push ahead with handover of Afghan aviation: watchdog