Contractor fraud puts troops at risk, investigation finds

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Security measures intended to prevent the placement of  roadside bombs on a major highway in Afghanistan were  improperly installed, the  Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction said in a safety alert last week.

The “culvert denial systems” were designed to prevent insurgents from placing improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in roadway culverts, according to the alert, which was sent to the commanders of the U.S. Central Command and U.S. Forces-Afghanistan.

“Through our preliminary investigative work, we estimate that a large number of culvert denial systems might have been falsely reported by Afghan contractors as complete when, in fact, the denial systems were not installed or were installed in a defective manner, rendering them ineffective and susceptible to compromise by insurgents seeking to emplace IEDs,” the SIGAR said in the Oct. 10 alert.

Officials identified an undisclosed location of particular concern for potential threats, “however, we are concerned that this problem may be more widely spread throughout Afghanistan,” the alert said.

The SIGAR has been working with the anti-corruption Task Force 2010 and U.S. Central Command Joint Theater Support Contracting Command on the investigation.

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