On the recordJune 13, 2019
I thank the gentlewoman from New York for yielding. I rise to engage in a colloquy with the chairwoman of the State- Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee. I rise today to discuss the immense value to the American taxpayer and Congress provided by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. Since 2002, the U.S. Government has spent over $126 billion--that is a b--building the Afghan security forces, promoting good governance, and conducting development assistance. Created in the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act, the SIGAR, as we refer to it, has helped to oversee the effectiveness of these programs and guarded against waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement. The SIGAR has alerted Congress to programs stymied by corruption, flawed leadership, and poor design, while also providing implementing agencies with lessons learned that have improved their efforts. I believe that SIGAR provides immense value to the American public and that their efforts should continue so long as the United States continues to allocate significant sums of money to the Afghan reconstruction. I want to ask the chairwoman to clarify that no language in the bill's House report should be construed as creating an end date for the SIGAR.
