Procurement switch puts boot into Afghan dream

Kabul Gazing glumly over millions of dollars worth of machinery which used to churn out thousands of police and army boots each day but now sits wreathed in plastic sheeting, Farhad Saffi fears he is seeing the death of an Afghan dream.

Saffi's Milli Boot Factory, in Kabul's sprawling industrial hinterland, was a model for Afghanistan, showcasing local manufacturing while giving jobs to hundreds of people who may otherwise have picked up insurgent guns.

But a US decision to hand procurement to the Afghan government has left Saffi with something of a developed world problem — local officials opted for cheaper boots made in China and Pakistan, killing off Milli's contracts after a year.

"The US government told me when I started I would have contracts for five years, until at least 2014," he told Reuters. "The Afghan government gave me only three months' notice of cancellation and now I have $30 million [Dh110.18 million] worth of raw material I can't use."

When it opened, inside huge white sheds that once held PVC piping machinery but are now home to high-tech German injection moulding and boot-making equipment, Afghan and US generals were keen to be photographed alongside a local success story.

Quality certificate

US Navy Rear Admiral Kathleen Dussault toured in 2010 to present Saffi, just 23, with a quality certificate for the plant to supply fledgling Afghan National Security Forces with top-quality boots under contracts worth up to $40 million a year.

Saffi sold his leather boots, which underwent a rigorous quality testing process in the United States, for $62 a pair, while Chinese-made boots with imitation leather cost the Afghan government $22 in a contract for up to 700,000 pairs a year.

"The Afghan government is just looking for the lowest price," he said, surveying a room piled high with rolls of leather and raw material bought from Taiwan.

"They asked me to sell for $15 a pair, but the leather alone cost me $40. The Chinese boots use fake leather and quickly fall apart, but they are cheap."

From 2002 until the end of 2011, $85.5 billion was spent on reconstruction in Afghanistan, according to US government figures, while international aid worth $57 billion has flooded into the country.

Nato-led forces, who have mostly handled purchasing for the Afghan security forces in the decade-long war, have since 2010 operated under ‘Afghan First' rules, requiring them to buy where possible from local companies, boosting the economy and employment while underpinning anti-insurgent strategies.

Contracts for Afghan businesses included 100 per cent of Afghan uniforms and boots, textiles, furniture, tents, software and transformers, according to Nato data.

Job generation

Those contracts spawned 15,000 jobs, while making savings on imports for combat-related spending worth $650 million — still a fraction of the estimated $200 million spent on the war a day.

The Afghan First Policy backs anti-insurgency efforts by ensuring that people employed locally with better jobs and incomes aren't tempted to join the estimated 25,000 Afghan Taliban fighters in the country, often called the ‘$10-a-day Talib', referring to the payment offered to would-be fighters.

700 workers laid off

Some of the 700 workers laid off from Saffi's factory are now thinking of doing just that, seeing no other future as Western nations and NGOs look to leave the country with the withdrawal of most Nato combat troops in 2014.

"The factory must be reopened. If it doesn't, we will have to join the Taliban for a job. What else can we do? We have families to feed," Ares Khan, 23, said as he packed some of the last boots Milli will produce without a government change of heart.

Workers at the factory earned between $400 and $900 a month, well over the average wage in a country where up to a third of the 30 million population live under the poverty line.

Western exodus

But many businessmen and workers fear security will evaporate with the Western exodus, taking job opportunities and investment dollars with them to safer havens elsewhere, as Afghanistan's moneyed elite have done for decades.

Khan's friend, Khair Mohammad, who came to Kabul from Ghazni province where Nato forces are engaged now in one of the last large offensives of the war, also sees no future outside the insurgency if the Afghan government closes off jobs.

"There are 16 people in my family and there is no bread winner except me. When I go back to Ghazni, I will have to join the Taliban," Mohammad said.