KABUL - Since the beginning of August, NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan comptrollers have coordinated with the Afghan Ministry of Interior with mobile pay assessment teams, visiting Afghan police in all 34 provinces.
The team, consisting of a Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan advisor and MoI representatives, travels to meet with police while performing their duties, to districts, training centers and deployment centers.
The assessment teams provide Afghan National Police a way to elevate pay problems directly to MoI. Otherwise, problems may go unresolved for several pay periods. It’s also a way MoI can discuss the pay process with commanders and acquire feedback from the force.
“The ultimate goal is to ensure the entire Afghan National Police force is paid accurately and on time, so they stay on the job providing Afghan-led safety and security. The lack of infrastructure [electricity, banks, internet, and phone] and current insurgency make it nearly impossible to fully monitor all ANP pay from Kabul City,” said U.S. Air Force Capt. Jason Sanchez, ANP finance reform advisor. “We have to be where the ANP are to really make a difference.”
According to U.S. Air Force 1st Lt. Katy Simrell, ANP finance advisor, the desired outcome is to have MoI address pay issues, thus leading the teams.
“By working alongside a representative from MoI, timely solutions can be worked,” said Simrell, who is deployed from Misawa Air Base, Japan. “One of our long-term goals is to have MoI run the teams on their own, and perform inspections/audits on the district and provincial finance officers.”
The mobile teams will undoubtedly prove helpful to a force experiencing “growing pains.”
Afghanistan’s infrastructure is still far away from being able to provide an electronic payment system for their servicemembers to use, said Sanchez.
Due to a lack of electricity and internet access, only ANP in four provinces in Afghanistan use a Web-based electronic payment system submitting paperwork to higher headquarters, allowing for easy auditing of personnel on the force.
Many of the other provinces use computers but must submit paperwork by mail or in person. The documents require up to 25 signatures and take days to process.
“The ANP currently have a 10-day pay window at the end of the month,” said Sanchez, deployed from MacDill Air Force Base, Fla. “They don’t have a set pay date yet because their pay process is mostly manual and not sophisticated enough to support a single monthly payday.”
Sanchez explained that the ANP’s time, attendance is done, and payroll process starts at the beginning of the month. In that type of pay system, it opens the ANP to risks such as service members not showing up for work.
“[When service members don’t show up for work], Personnel and finance officers then have to figure out which folks may have missed work and adjust their pay for the following month.” said Sanchez.
There are currently four methods of pay available to the ANP depending on where they’re located: electronic funds transfer, pay-by-phone, pay-by-list and trusted agents. EFT is direct deposit. Pay-by-phone allows an ANP member to receive a text message and a phone call about their pay and can then get their money from a local agent instead of a bank. Pay-by-list allows a member to receive their pay in-person from a branch of Da Afghanistan Bank. In addition, trusted agent is an appointed police officer from that district who travels to the bank and receives cash for all ANP in his district.
“EFT is the most efficient method of pay,” said Sanchez. “It minimizes the potential for corruption because the money is going directly from the Ministry of Finance through the Central Bank to the individual’s bank account – there are no other hands touching the money.”
EFT rate for the ANP is currently at 77 percent. However, the growth correlates with the expansion of the Afghan banks throughout the country.
“We don’t want to put ANP members on EFT if they’re not within 25 kilometers of a bank,” Sanchez said. “We could put everybody on EFT but it doesn’t do them any good because they would have difficulty getting their cash. We want them on the job, not spending hours or days traveling back and forth to a bank, which may involve movement through insurgent occupied areas.
“As long as it takes for banks to expand their branches or place mobile bank teams out there, that’s how long it will take to get everyone on EFT,” said Sanchez. “We are looking at other avenues to provide electronic funds transfer and access to cash. Pay-by-cell phone is one example.”
According to Sanchez, trusted agents have the largest opportunity for corruption and theft of money.
“We’ve had reports from districts where an entire district’s money has been stolen by the trusted agent,” he said. “There have also been reports of money being skimmed by trusted agents and the district police chief possibly receiving kickbacks because of the risk of going to the bank to get the money for everyone. They have to go through high-threat areas in order to bring the cash back.”
According to the NTM-A comptrollers, EFT may be the preferred method but the ANP must rely on the other methods out of sheer necessity.
“Part of our pay assessment teams going out into the districts and into the provincial headquarters is so that [the ANP] know that we’re there and that they’re being watched; also, to show the coalition forces and advisors what they need to be looking for and steps they need to take to help improve the processes and combat the corruption as well,” Sanchez said.
All of challenges with the pay system sometimes cause Afghan National Police members to go months without pay. The mobile pay assessment teams have helped identify and solve multiple pay and process discrepancies.
“It is important that CSTC-A comptrollers and MoI work together on the pay assessment teams so that first, we can identify any problems and work together to resolve them quickly. Second, we can educate the ANP leaders, Finance and Personnel officers, and ANP mentors on how to route any pay issues for resolution,” said Simrell. “We have seen increased communication between the districts with MoI and comptrollers as a result from our visits.”
Pay issues that sat silently unresolved are identified and aggressively worked by the joint effort between NTM-A comptrollers and MoI. It’s just as their motto states – “No money—No mission.”
“We’re getting great support from MoI,” said U.S. Air Force Col. Nick Johnston, director of CJ8 [Comptrollers] “We’re all trying to cooperate with each other to improve the pay system.”
| Date Taken: |
09.01.2010 |
| Date Posted: |
09.01.2010 10:46 |
| Story ID: |
55536 |
| Location: |
KABUL, AF |
| Web Views: |
53 |
| Downloads: |
3 |
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