US spent $14.7M on building in Afghanistan that it never used

The U.S. government spent $14.7 million to construct a warehouse for a Pentagon agency in Afghanistan that was never used as intended because of delays.

“If the facility had been completed on schedule, [the Defense Logistics Agency] would have been able to use it for more than two years before the agency’s mission in Kandahar ended in 2014,” according to a 15-page report released Monday by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

In 2009, the Army started the process to construct a warehouse facility in Kandahar, Afghanistan, for the Defense Logistics Agency, which provides supplies and services to U.S. forces around the world.

At that time, the agency didn’t have a facility inside Afghanistan where it could store materials and equipment

{mosads}In late 2010, the Army Corps of Engineers awarded a $13.5 million contract to two Turkish companies, which were required to finish construction by August 2011.

The companies, however, caused construction delays and didn’t follow all of the contract requirements. That contract was eventually terminated.

In May 2013, a second contract award for $844,526 was given to a U.S.-based construction company to complete the warehouse within four months. The contract was again extended and modified seven times until the warehouse was completed several months later. Those modifications cost the U.S. $400,000 more, the report said.

The inspector general questioned why construction of the facility continued past August 2013 despite the Army’s decision to pull the defense agency out of Kandahar as part of the U.S. withdrawal.

The defense agency accepted the facility in February 2014, more than two years after the originally scheduled deadline, but the report said “it never occupied or used the facility.”

An official said the U.S. plans to transfer the area where the facility is located to the Afghan government by Dec. 1.

U.S. Central Command, meanwhile, said it would investigate who made the decision to continue construction and why, despite the order to pull out.