As the US prepares to triple its aid package to Pakistan – to a proposed $1.5 billion over the next year – US President Barack Obama’s administration officials are debating how much of the assistance should go directly to a government that has been widely accused of corruption, said American and Pakistani officials.
A procession of Obama administration economic experts have visited Islamabad in recent weeks to try to ensure both that the money will not be wasted by the government and that it will be more effective in winning the good will of public increasingly hostile to the US, according to officials involved with the project.
As American legislators move toward passage of the aid legislation, the administration knows it must get quick results from the increased assistance or face potential Congressional cutbacks down the road in a programme envisioned to cost $1.5 billion every year for the next five years.
“We are struggling over how much cash to give to the government,” said a senior US official involved in the planning. The overhaul of assistance, led by the US state department, comes amid increased urgency about an economic crisis that is intensifying social unrest in Pakistan, and about the willingness of the government there to sustain its fight against a raging insurgency in the northwest.
It follows an assessment within the Obama administration that the amount of non-military aid to the country in the past few years was inadequate and favoured American contractors rather than Pakistan recipients, according to several of the American officials involved.