The Washington Post noted that in 2009 the US Congress passed the five-year $7.5 billion aid plan “with fanfare” but now it has become another cause of embarrassment. – File Photo

WASHINGTON: In two years, Pakistan has only received $500 million from the Kerry-Lugar-Berman aid plan for providing $1.5 billion a year, The Washington Post reported on Friday.

The newspaper noted that in 2009 the US Congress passed the five-year $7.5 billion aid plan “with fanfare” but now it has become another cause of embarrassment.

The programme intended to prove Washington’s long-term commitment to Pakistan’s weak civilian government and to reset bilateral relations long centred on military ties. But bureaucratic delays, disagreements over priorities and fears about corruption were preventing the plan from achieving its objectives.

Last month, two congressional panels in the Republican-dominated House of Representatives passed legislation, recommending new restrictions on US aid to Pakistan.

“US officials say they expect lawmakers to shrink the aid package while requiring greater evidence that Pakistan is fighting terrorism and that the funding is reaping benefits,” the Post reported.

The newspaper also noted that such developments had transformed the plan “from a potential tool for healing the deep rift between the United States and Pakistan to yet another flash point” in a tense relationship.

The report warned that in Pakistan, the slow start and lower-than-expected disbursements were “reinforcing impressions of the United States as an unreliable ally”.

The Post also recalled that many Pakistanis still resented the United States for cutting aid after the Soviet withdrawal from
Afghanistan in 1989, and the Obama administration’s recent decision to withhold $800 million in military aid was seen as “a new example of American fickleness”.

The report, however, quoted US officials as saying that the disbursements were now gaining momentum and that their task was to “increase the pace while tempering expectations”.

A senior official at the Finance Ministry in Islamabad, however, told the Post that delayed disbursements had contributed to an increase in the Pakistani budget deficit.

Officials with the US Agency for International Development told the paper that they did not receive funding for the programme until September 2010 and that, including previously unused funds; the agency had spent more than $2 billion on civilian aid in Pakistan since late 2009.

The Obama administration pledged to channel about half the new money through the Pakistani government and local organisations, “but identifying Pakistani agencies that have clean records and are competent has required months of audits and reviews”, the report observed.

The newspaper also pointed out that the United States had pledged to fund “signature” projects, particularly in the energy sector, to serve as symbols of American friendship. But Pakistan was seeking even more “visible projects”, including $500 million for a dam in the north.