America Wasted $160 Million Trying To Get Afghanistan To Use E-Payments (vice.com) 150
An anonymous reader shares a report: The country might be home to America's longest-running war, but the US has spent more time, energy, and money trying to rebuild Afghanistan than it has spent killing the Taliban. American taxpayers send billions to Kabul every year and every year billions disappear into the pockets of Afghan government officials. Electronic payment systems would go a long way to solving that problem. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) wanted to do just that. The Agency figured if it could convince those at corruption hotspots, such as customs agents and border guards, to use e-payment methods, then it might curb the amount of cash those agents pocketed every day. Between 2009 and 2017, USAID spent $160 million and partnered American tech companies to set up e-pay in Afghanistan, according to a new report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). The goal was to get the border guards trained and using the new methods, with an aim of 75 percent of all customs transactions paid electronically by 2017. As of today, less than one percent of those transactions are electronic, SIGAR reports. And custom officials loathe the system. "It's a very long and inefficient process and that's why people do not use this method," one Afghan custom official told SIGAR agents.
only $160M? (Score:2)
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$1 per taxpayer in one year.
In 8 years, 12.5 cents per taxpayer.
Re: only $160M? (Score:2)
Gosh, well, who'd have thought..?" (Score:5, Insightful)
"We tried convincing corrupt customs officials to change to a new payment method which would prevent them from stealing large sums of money but they weren't interested. We are at a loss to explain why that might be."
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Re: Gosh, well, who'd have thought..?" (Score:1)
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" -- Upton Sinclair, 1935
I've thought so for some time (Score:5, Insightful)
Problem? This isn't a bug, it's a feature. Look: it channels vast amounts of tax dollars into the pockets of US corporations, while also propping up the government of Afghanistan so as to channel even more tax dollars into the US military-industrial complex. The (cough) "problems" will simply result in more tax dollars flowing into the proper pockets (IOW, not yours, and not mine.)
Meanwhile, the average net worth of a US congress member is over a million dollars, the US education system is starved for funds and the ACA is deemed "too expensive."
Looks to me like the system is doing exactly what it's intended to be doing. The oligarchy gets richer, and most everyone else either treads water or gets poorer. Hurrah! How 'bout those Kardashians, eh?
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How 'bout those Kardashians, eh?
Are they going to win the World Series? I mean, if the Cubs can...
Anyway, keeping the opium pipeline open is worth every penny spent so far... but E-payments would step on some toes, so it hardly seems practical.
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Anybody else notice that when America was at war in SE asia they claimed that 80% of the world's opium came from there?
Synthetic opioids make it academic. One Chinese lab can make enough to keep the world fucked up, forever.
The last thing anybody in power wants is a way to truly track money flows. How would they get paid?
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Anybody else notice that when America was at war in SE asia they claimed that 80% of the world's opium came from there?
Synthetic opioids make it academic. One Chinese lab can make enough to keep the world fucked up, forever.
The last thing anybody in power wants is a way to truly track money flows. How would they get paid?
aye just posted that above, you're right that myth seems to adapt to wherever the current conflict is. I didn't state above but a lot of US street opiates are South American and SEA (oft Chinese these days as Thai stuff dropped off) in origin but it is easier to deal in conspiracy claims than the truth which is more boring. The Chinese and other labs are indeed cuttign a lot of product with synthetics so unsure if that was insightful guess or you know that? Fentanyl and the like are common adulterants and
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How 'bout those Kardashians, eh?
Are they going to win the World Series? I mean, if the Cubs can...
Anyway, keeping the opium pipeline open is worth every penny spent so far... but E-payments would step on some toes, so it hardly seems practical.
you'll find most the worlds opium isn't Afghani at all. That is a myth that keeps getting pushed. Same claim happened with SE Asian opium in late 'Nam conflict era when a lot of it wasn't from there in the USA at the time. There are several big producers. SEA (Vietnam is inluded but bulk of production is China, Thailand, Laos, Burma), SWAsian (mainly Afghanistan), Mexico and Guatemala region, other South American (mainly Peru and some mountainous Columbia).
Opium hardly ever leaves the country if ever. It
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Problem? This isn't a bug, it's a feature. Look: it channels vast amounts of tax dollars into the pockets of US corporations, while also propping up the government of Afghanistan so as to channel even more tax dollars into the US military-industrial complex.
Related:
https://www.opensecrets.org/or... [opensecrets.org]
Looks like your typical DC "company" - donate to Democrats and get lucrative government contracts in return.
Some money makes it into the hands of employees (Score:3)
The Complex was built to keep our economy going because it's easier to get people to pay for 'defense' when you're redistributing wealth. And like it or not we either
Re: I've thought so for some time (Score:2)
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"We tried convincing corrupt customs officials to change to a new payment method which would prevent them from stealing large sums of money but they weren't interested. We are at a loss to explain why that might be."
this 1000x..... Plus importers who are used to paying bribes to expedite contraband aren't interested in using the new system either. Plus government officials that get their cut... etc...
You can't just tell people that they "should start using the new system". You have to tell them that they "have to use the new system". The only way this type of thing works is if you force it on the users and customers and fire/fine those that are actively bypassing it.
The problem here is that the US is a third pa
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No waste here (Score:2)
Wait, what? (Score:2, Insightful)
"Hey guys, we think you're corrupt and stealing money, so we want you to adopt this new system that will make it harder to be corrupt and steal money."
And we're surprised the plan failed?
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"Hey guys, we think you're corrupt and stealing money, so we want you to adopt this new system that will make it harder to be corrupt and steal money."
And we're surprised the plan failed?
Exactly. Nobody should be surprised at all. Maybe next year we can spend a few hundred million on a campaign to have criminals imprison themselves instead of the inefficient process of having them be apprehended, prosecuted, transported to prison etc...
Who exactly got the $160 million bucks? That would be a story actually worth reading.
Brought to you by the creators of healthcare.gov (Score:4, Interesting)
No doubt the same contracting firms that built healthcare.gov created the payment system.
E-payments aren't the usual in the US, either (Score:5, Insightful)
The numbers have likely changed, but in 2012 about 50% of all financial transactions were done with cash in the US. For transactions involving amounts of $25 or less, the figure rises to 75% in cash.
Getting a 75% adoption rate in Afghanistan seems over-the-top optimistic from the start.
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Not really. You're talking about the infrastructure for an entire country, here they are talking about specifically targeted transactions. It is very much possible to do that. Heck my work is sitting at 100% right now, far higher than the rest of the country. They simply don't accept cash at the canteen.
Also part of the USA's failure is that the system is stuck in the stone age of electronic transactions. Unsafe credit card practices (signature) combined without outdated payment methods (no simple wireless)
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Also part of the USA's failure is that the system is stuck in the stone age
This is part of why I think it's unrealistic -- we're talking about electronic payments from US entities. Even US citizens don't trust the system enough to wholeheartedly embrace it. Why would Afghani citizens?
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On saturday here there are markets selling bootlegged shit on the side of the street. Even they accept electronic payment including paying with my phone. You won't see that in the USA very frequently.
I have seen them in the US before, but it's been a while. I used to even see panhandlers who took cards. I assume that they stopped because there weren't enough people stupid enough to allow them to swipe their card.
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The numbers have likely changed, but in 2012 about 50% of all financial transactions were done with cash in the US. For transactions involving amounts of $25 or less, the figure rises to 75% in cash. Getting a 75% adoption rate in Afghanistan seems over-the-top optimistic from the start.
I don't know Afghanistan I doubt people pay customs on a bag of groceries they bought across the border. At the border I would think you're talking about supplies for stores, industry, markets and major/bulk purchases. Like, things they are probably quite capable of paying for electronically if they wanted to. If they wanted to get anywhere they should probably just have imposed a max limit that says customs transactions over say $1000 must be paid electronically, like you simply don't get valid documents o
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For 2% cash back I use my card for pretty much everything. At least until some places started adding the transaction fee to the card purchase, good incentive to go back to cash.
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How many people in the US pay import taxes and customs fees in cash?
You think? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why would they act against their own self interest given their situation? In very poor countries where everyone including government officials and police are paid very little, graft is a way of life. It takes a lot more than trying to force an e-payment system to change this type of behavior. There is a reason judges in the United States are paid very well. To make them more immune to bribery. If any given official who's job it is to handle lots of money is not paid well himself, he will tend to skim off the top.
It takes a deep-rooted cultural shift to move away from graft, and the solution is much more complex than simply trying to implement an e-payment system. Also, if, as the quoted official says, it is very arcane and difficult to use (and that is not just an excuse to keep pocking to the loot) that presents even less of an incentive.
A multi-pronged approach has to involve their own government's willingness to truly change the behavior of their officials from the top down, in addition to whatever magic etchnology solution the west is proffering. It is a very difficult thing to do when the culture is deeply embedded in an organization at all levels.
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You miss the point.
How much do you think US contractors were paid to implement that e-payment system? Probably even more than the Afghans steal.
A few points (Score:1)
1) Corrupt officials don't like using traceable payment methods? I'm SHOCKED!
2) We have to admit the possibility that the payment methods really do suck. 10 years ago the states had card swiping at the register, right? Quick, easy, efficient. Faster than cash OR checks, it was really the ideal solution ( except for the security ).
Then we "upgraded", and now it's faster to use cash and, often, checks. Chip transactions take forever, and that's only compounded by modern machines which run SLOWER than the
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Faster than cash OR checks
In the US, it used to be faster than cash, but that stopped being true a while ago when payment systems started adding all those stupid questions to the checkout process.
And chip cards are even worse. They seem to take about 1.5 to 2 times longer than swipe cards.
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NFC is faster than swiping, get with the times America.
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Apparently so! The number and type of questions can vary from store to store (or even in the same store from week to week). When I used one this afternoon, I was asked (excluding the questions required for the transaction) if I had a loyalty card and if I wanted to make a charitable donation. I think the most non-relevant questions I got in one go was four.
It wouldn't be as bad if the process was consistent, so I could learn the proper sequence. But it's not, so I have to actually wait and read every screen
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Not in my area. Chip cards take an insanely long time for the machines to process around here.
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That's due to the underlying infrastructure, not the technology itself. In Canada, and most of the developed world, chip+pin transactions are virtually instantaneous. For small amounts, the NFC/touch pay is also pretty much instantaneous. It boggles my mind that transactions are so slow in the US... hell, when I travel to Europe, my Canadian chip card is no slower than it is in Canada, so it shouldn't take that long to process.
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That's due to the underlying infrastructure, not the technology itself.
Absolutely correct. I have no technical issues with the idea itself. But as implemented in the US, it's pretty awful. Cash is the fastest and easiest way to buy things here.
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That's due to the underlying infrastructure, not the technology itself. In Canada, and most of the developed world, chip+pin transactions are virtually instantaneous. For small amounts, the NFC/touch pay is also pretty much instantaneous. It boggles my mind that transactions are so slow in the US... hell, when I travel to Europe, my Canadian chip card is no slower than it is in Canada, so it shouldn't take that long to process.
I agree. Used to when I watched other people use chip cards, most of the delay was due to them not paying attention to the card terminal and answering the prompts quickly or having the cashier to prompt them to do something. When most people (mostly old folks) see anything related to computers, they vapor-lock and are terrified of breaking something. And then they go to Wally World and use the SELF CHECKOUTS which is another eternity of waiting. SMH.
My bank FINALLY issued me a chip card recently and I f
Comment removed (Score:3)
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And this is why Afghanistan might be better off if we'd left the Taliban in charge. As cruel as they are, the Taliban effectively enforce the rule of law and prevent anyone but themselves from being corrupt. That's a basis to eventually build a functional developing society from. If you try to skip that step and build a developing democracy on the sands of corruption, it'll never gain any traction.
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The only thing stupider than what happened if your proposal. Nuking a practically-defenseless country would've:
1) left the USA without any allies and most likely under sanctions
2) made the USA far, far more likely to be preemptively nuked by another country in the future, endangering 300,000,000 lives in a way that a handful of pathetic criminals blowing themselves up can never do
3) created a huge spike in terrorist funding and focused all terrorism efforts specifically onto the USA, instead of mostly on th
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And also, by the way, most of Al Qaeda would've survived the nukes by living in Pakistan. And if the USA had nuked Pakistan, millions of Americans would've died in the response.
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Easy Fix (Score:1)
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Better fix: leave the country.
They sound smarter than us (Score:5, Insightful)
We ( the US ) "upgraded" to chip technology, and now a transaction which took 2 seconds before takes almost a minute now. The situation is exasperated by the software "upgrades" at the registers which make them run slower now than they did 10 years ago ( they were fast back then ). The situation is so bad at some stores that I've started carrying cash again because of how long a digital transaction takes.
Maybe these Afgan folks are on to something here.
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One minute?? How did you manage to take something Europe had been using for years, with no speed problems, and make it run slow?
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It's probably tied to the Bitcoin network by now.
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At walmart it's near instantaneous and other places nearly so. At smaller stores I have indeed waited a full minute or more for the transaction to process. I almost never use a card for any transaction less than 50 dollars so it's not a problem to wait occasionally but if you think it works great everywhere you haven't been anywhere much.
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At walmart it's near instantaneous and other places nearly so. At smaller stores I have indeed waited a full minute or more ...
I'd hazard a guess that this is because in smaller stores the terminals are not permanently connected to the network, hence the delay while they connect so they can verify your pin before authorising the transaction. You still see it in smaller shops over here in the UK, where the shop phone can't be used at the same time as the terminal.
While it can be a tad frustrating, I'd say people could probably do with relaxing a bit if a one minute delay is enough to wind them up. That said, I do prefer using cash f
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Wow, at stores without internet connected terminals, you have to wait for them to dial up and connect before your transaction is verified?
Holy shit.
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The point being, in many places it isn't instantaneous as is claimed.
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We ( the US ) "upgraded" to chip technology, and now a transaction which took 2 seconds before takes almost a minute now.
You the US fouled up the transition quite royally. Transactions still take less than 2 seconds with chip+pin in the rest of the world, and it's even faster with paywave. Hell my mobile takes less than 2 seconds to pay on a bog standard payment terminal.
Re:They sound smarter than us (Score:4, Informative)
We fouled up the transition if you only care about speed, and not security. In most of the world, pin+chip is recorded, and then the transaction gets balanced at a later time. It's possible to clone a thousand cards once you know the pin, and then execute multiple transactions against it. Eventually some system will check and it will be declined, but depending on how long it takes to finalize the transaction, you can steal a lot of money. In the US, it checks the balance before completing each transaction. That's what takes so long.
So the US is more secure, but it takes longer. I'm not sure that I'm willing to claim we fouled up the transition given that. Since the switch, I've had 0 fraud on my card. I used to get 1-2 fraud instances every year before this. Is that worth an extra 20 seconds at the check-out? I think so.
Re:They sound smarter than us (Score:5, Informative)
We fouled up the transition if you only care about speed, and not security. In most of the world, pin+chip is recorded, and then the transaction gets balanced at a later time. It's possible to clone a thousand cards once you know the pin, and then execute multiple transactions against it. Eventually some system will check and it will be declined, but depending on how long it takes to finalize the transaction, you can steal a lot of money. In the US, it checks the balance before completing each transaction. That's what takes so long.
I don't know where "most of the world" is, but here in Norway at least 99.9% of the terminals and 100% of the ATMs are online doing balance checks and from I've entered my PIN and hit OK to it clears in maybe two seconds. It's long enough that I have to briefly pause before yanking the card out, not long enough that I bring my hand down to wait for the "approved" message. Waiters etc. have wireless terminals that work just as well as the wired ones. I can't imagine twenty seconds unless there's a modem doing dial-up on demand to relay the transaction. The back-end should most definitively answer in a second or less.
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In the US, it checks the balance before completing each transaction. That's what takes so long.
That isn't why the systems in the US are slower. I can hit a payment gateway in another country, which then hits a payment processor back in the US, and have the result returned to a terminal in under 200ms most of the time. The problem is with the way that they are implementing everything that occurs prior to the online request being generated. I have seen some terminals spend over 20 seconds negotiating the transaction details with the chip prior to generating the first application cryptogram. Dependi
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We fouled up the transition if you only care about speed, and not security.
Claiming the USA has some lead in security is laughable and bordering on absurd. Here, let me secure against all this fraud with a little squiggle. That ought to do it.
In most of the world, pin+chip is recorded, and then the transaction gets balanced at a later time.
Balancing at a later time happens within seconds.
It's possible to clone a thousand cards once you know the pin
It's possible to do a lot of nefarious things when you know someone's pin code. That's why we keep it a secret. Mind you it's possible to do a lot if you're able to make a squiggle too, something far easier in the USA.
Since the switch, I've had 0 fraud on my card.
You do realise that fraud rates have plummeted in the rest of the world as a
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Transactions in New Zealand are verified before being accepted. Only takes a few seconds. I can even see the transaction immediately after in my mobile banking app.
Once you know the pin, it's still pretty hard to clone a chip card. You'd need to get the private keys out of it first.
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I've had 0 fraud on my card in Europe in my entire life (20 years of card usage).
10 days after moving to the US, I had a fraud on my debit card with Pin+Chip. And yes, it is much slower than in Europe, but no I don't see the point in extra security since the solution is good enough in Europe (and actually maybe even better).
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Almost a minute? What are you smoking.
Also, the transaction is taking nearly the same total time, the only difference is that before you would swipe the magstripe and then more stuff would happen whereas now you can't remove the chip until the last step. So granted it's more convenient to swipe and put the card away in your wallet while the terminals finishes up, but that's nothing to do with how long it actually takes to acquire the transaction.
By the way, did you know that you can copy a magstripe card wi
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It must be your infrastructure. In the Minnesota metro area, I use chip+pin in many different retail locations. It only takes a few seconds. The longest part of the transaction is me entering my PIN. Well, OK. The longest part of the transaction is me entering my phone number because I forgot that stupid little fob to get my rewards. But still.
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Central CA.
The problem is definitely multi-vectored. While the readers certainly suck, the registers themselves add a significant amount of overhead to the process. It honestly seems that the newer the register, the longer it takes to create a transaction and process a payment.
Hell, I'm not even talking about how long it takes the customer to figure out which end of the card to put in, when to take it out, ect...that's usually so much worse.
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This is a serious question as I haven't heard of any card issuer in the US doing chip+pin.
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Have you tried.... I don't know.... talking to your card issuer?
you sir have spoiled american syndrome (Score:2)
I don't want to do it because:
1. it's hard, because
2.it takes too long
3. I have to wake up earlier
4. I'll have to miss my favorite show
5. because it's my constitutional right and I don't care if it's wrong
and our newest
6. because it target's me as an individual, or/and generalizes my identity.
The old way was insecure, outdated, and cost institutions (see users) millions of dollars a year due to avoidable fraud. This way is somewhat more secure ... period
That's because businesses are trying to use (Score:2)
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That's basically the retailer hopefully having done the risk analysis and saying "losing out on X sometimes because of fraud is better than slowing everything down by requiring signatures".
I've been asked to sign for a latte, and not asked to sign for $50 purchases. That's all up to the retailer.
Missing one important word (Score:2)
Don't you need "electricity" for those? Seems like "instant fail" for this location...
we need to get out of Afghanistan (Score:2)
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Just another opium war [bbc.co.uk]... gotta keep the pipeline open
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Until Afghanistan turns back into a failed state like what happened after the Soviets left, or what happened in Iraq after the US left. The only thing that abhors a vacuum more than nature is power. If the US reduces its influence in the area, then someone else will fill that void, and we probably won't like the results.
That's Crazy (Score:1)
E-payments? (Score:2)
Afghanistan is less developed than most countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The whole country has around 2 (as in 2.0) miles of railway. The literacy rate is 38%. Whoever expects electronic payments to take off in Afghanistan probably thinks we can eradicate poppy cultivation in exchange for planting corn and raising sheep.
No stab at Trump? (Score:1)
No twist how that would somehow be Trump's fault? Or at least some unrelated stab at him? Come on, you're slipping, Vice!
And? (Score:1)
It's called nation building and regime change. Corporate military industrial welfare. Bush did it. Obama did it. Trump's doing it. (And you sure as fuck better believe Hillary would be doing it).
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Stein wouldn't be doing it, so it's not my fault.
as they say.. (Score:2)
..."follow the money".
The idea that this makes sense in Afghanistan - where safe running water and electricity are still primary concerns - is idiotic. So idiotic, I strongly suspect corruption.
So...follow the money. Just once, I'd love to see someone actually burrow to the bottom of this, find out WHO (SPECIFICALLY) authorized this, at the behest of whom, and how much $ was involved in 'no-bid' contracts or 'friendly' arrangements.
AND THEN PROSECUTE THEM AGGRESSIVELY.
Prison (Score:2)
Wouldn't it be simpler to just prosecute the corrupt officials for corruption? I mean how complex could it be? One undercover agent and then rinse repeat that for a few months until everyone is to scared to take bribery because they don't know if the traveler is an agent. Problem solved.
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Wouldn't it have been simpler to have had a military governor since 2001 and only now gradually introducing democracy instead of having elections 3 months after the invasion? Japan didn't return to fully self governed until '72 and it seems to have worked out OK for them.
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It probably would be, if USA had the jurisdiction to arrest and prosecute people in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan is not the 51st state.
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The cases would have to be investigated by the Afghan police and prosecuted in the Afghan courts, as no one else has jurisdiction. In countries where the customs officials are corrupt (and get away with it), it's quite likely that the police and judges are corrupt as well. So even if the police and judges could be bothered to take on a case against a corrupt customs official, they could probably be easily persuaded (i.e. bribed) to drop it.
In other words, corruption exists (and continues to exist) because t
Perfect method to make your partner rich (Score:1)
Perplexing failure to adopt (Score:2)
The Agency figured if it could convince those at corruption hotspots, such as customs agents and border guards, to use e-payment methods, then it might curb the amount of cash those agents pocketed every day.
So you're saying this foolproof plan didn't work? Huh.
That's a new one (Score:2)
Is someone using copy-and-paste hit pieces from Breitbart to create Slashdot summaries now?
160 Million spent on a good, but failed, cause (Score:1)
You call this rebuilding? (Score:1)
what a waste of money (Score:2)
New Translation Program (Score:2)
I hope the people of Slashdot will help me test the translation program I have written. It allows on-the-fly repair of English statements badly-translated from the main Afghani languages and renders them into a more accurate English translation.
I entered the customs official's comment, "It's a very long and inefficient process and that's why people do not use this method," into my software, and this is what I got back:
"When they can't afford proper health care or to send their kids to college, how can I ex
E-Payments, what about back home? (Score:2)
In Europe there is IBAN, while allows you to transfer cash from any account to an account electronically. Over here it isn't so simple. Last time I wanted to pay my landlord it was still by check - what is this? 1880?
Anti-freedom (Score:1)
That money should be going into the pockets of home-grown God's honest American government officials!
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Trump won. Look up definition of "Pyrrhic victory".
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Look up definition of "Pyrrhic victory".
That's actually a very insightful comment. The DNC successfully rigged the primaries to give Clinton the nomination; but it devastated the party and will end Debbie Wasserman Schultz's political career.
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The American people lost. We only had two choices, Hillary or Trump. There was no way to win.
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If Trump accomplishes nothing, it will be better than the damage Hillary would likely have caused. At least we've shaken things up.
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At least we've shaken things up.
All I can picture is a kid treating his ant farm like an Etch-a-Sketch.
Thank you Electoral College (Score:2)
Yes, we lost, and Clinton has pretty much always been an obvious sycophant for the status quo - so yeah, it would have been some kind of loss either way.
But there was an obvious path to losing in a far, far worse way. And that worse way is exactly what we got.