Pakistan yet to get $2.9bn under CSF

ASMA RAZAQ & ALI HUSSAIN

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has yet to get 2.9 billion dollars under Coalition Support Fund (CSF) while an amount of 8.7 billion dollars of the total 11.6 billion dollars has been received under the fund since 2002, it was learnt reliably.

CSF was established after 9/11 to reimburse key allies for providing assistance to the US in a global war on terror. These countries include Pakistan, Poland, Jordan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Czech Republic, United Kingdom, Djibouti, Oman, Ukraine, Tajikistan, Tonga, Slovakia, Romania, Thailand, Lithuania, Mongolia, Albania, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.

Informed sources told Business Recorder that under CSF, Pakistan was to receive 11.6 billion dollars in the next 10 years since its establishment in 2002 but after killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in a unilateral US raid, the amount due under the Fund has been stalled. “Sine May 2011, not a single penny has been released to Pakistan under the CSF”, official sources said.

However, sources also revealed that since the Abbottabad raid that killed Osama bin Laden, Pakistan has not sent a single invoice to the US for release of the pending amount of 2.9 billion dollars. During ongoing negotiations between Pakistan and the US on the resumption of Nato supplies, the sources said that the due amount was also under consideration.

While responding to queries by Business Recorder, US Embassy spokesman Mark Stroh dispelled the impression that the CSF was somehow related to the Nato supply lines, and in his words “which is most certainly not the case”.

On the CSF, as Special Representative Grossman said when he was in Islamabad last month, the US was willing to discuss settling outstanding claims for the coalition support funds, the spokesman added.

On KLB funding, he said that since the passage of the Kerry-Lugar-Berman legislation in October 2009 until today, the US government has disbursed 2.8 billion dollars in civilian assistance, including approximately 550 million dollars in emergency humanitarian assistance. In FY 2011 specifically, the US disbursed approximately 855 million dollars, he added.

In the current fiscal year (FY 2012), he said that disbursements had continued but he did not give details of the disbursements.

The spokesman also dispelled the impression that funding had been stopped or been held up in some way. “That is not the case”, he maintained.

The US Senate bill Kerry-Lugar, named for its authors, Democrat John Kerry and Republican Richard Lugar, focuses on economic development in the Islamic world’s only declared nuclear power that envisages 1.5 billion dollars per annum for five years.