1.

The North East Power System (NEPS) network in Afghanistan is one of the largest and significant
power supplies within the country that is supplying Power in the North East. As NEPS across from many
provinces like Balkh, Kunduz, Kabul, Ghazni, and Gardez, it has a huge impact from different
dimensions. The NEPS project hugely affects the Afghan people living in the mentioned areas and the
economy of the whole country. It also impacts the U.S. citizens to pay more taxes as the project was
directly funded by the U.S. government and they put $289.1 million.

The first party that has been affected directly is the people of Afghanistan who end up with a non-reliable
power system that is risky for them even though an enormous amount of money was spent. According to
the SIGAR`s report, the NEPS power system was not made for permanently-based usage standards. In
addition, it is so risky and hazardous for near residents because of the low quality of lines` transmission.
Also, the system could not cover a large area. As a result, Afghan people`s lives were affected so badly
for being at risk, not having stable power, and less coverage.

The United States citizens are the second party that was affected negatively. As the NEPS project was
funded by the U.S government, the actual people who paid for this low-standard project are U.S. citizens.
They are paying a large amount of their income to the federal government in the hope to be spent
accurately and as long as they find out that their money is wasted it will be very harmful to them.

Finally, the Afghan economy was impacted by the inconvenient NEPS project. It was supposed to be a
developing project economically in Afghanistan especially in the South East but it ends up with an
unreliable power system by wasting $289.1 million. As the system could not cover a huge area so it
caused the Afghan government to spend more money to provide more power in other areas. In addition,
less coverage prevented some economical improvements. Moreover, the delay in phase 1 disappointed
donors and fundraisers to cooperate in more development projects. To conclude, it badly affected the
Afghan people`s well-being.

2. Three parties should be blamed

1. United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE): We think that USACE is the first party that
should be blamed as it was the top responsible for procurement. The main problem rose as
USACE gave the NEPS phase 1 contract to SCL without validity verification. Also, they
contracted phases 2 and 3 with ZNCC that was a disqualified contractor owned by a proposed
debarment. Moreover, in phase 4, they contract with URS-Mega Tech JV that its president was
the nephew of a debarred. Besides, agreeing to the DOD and FAR memorandums' rules, the
USACE should inquire about the SAM, JCCS, and FAPIIS, interview but the USACE did not.
2. State Corps Limited (SCL): SCL is the second party that we think should be blamed for the
project`s failure. Due to the falsification of their experience on several occasions, we believe
(SCL) is accountable for these acquisition issues. They provided fabricated information regarding
their work with large projects in electrical power transmission. Additionally, based on this
falsified information contracts were issued for organizations that were neither eligible and nor
had the qualifications to complete the project effectively and all due to the incompetence of the
(USACE) in identifying these falsifications.

3. The North East Power System (NEPS) contracting officer(s): Prior to the issuance of contracts
to the prospective contractors NEPS failed to do a proper audit which ultimately resulted in the
risk of wasting about $290 million from the construction budget. On top of that, during the audit
and inspections process of SIGAR, they were the main problem creators of the audit process.