The US government has spent about $55bn on rebuilding in Afghanistan since 2001 but cannot easily show how the money was spent, a government watchdog says.

The special inspector general’s office for Afghanistan reconstruction talked of a ‘confusing labyrinth’ of spending.

It said some 7,000 contractors received $17.7bn from 2007-09 but data prior to 2007 was too poor to be analysed.

It is the first comprehensive audit of US spending in Afghanistan since US-led troops ousted the Taliban in 2001.

According to the report, US government agencies are not tracking Afghan contracts in a shared database and cannot easily show where the money went.

The BBC’s Quentin Sommerville in Kabul says record-keeping has been so poor that most of the money has not been properly recorded.

The Pentagon, state department and USAID ‘are unable to readily report on how much money they spend on contracting for reconstruction activities in Afghanistan’, said the report from the special inspector general’s office, which was set up by Congress.

It was also not clear who had received money disbursed by the three agencies, which are the biggest US spenders on Afghan reconstruction.

‘Oversight impossible’

Pentagon contracts worth $11.5bn for construction, supplies and logistics in Afghanistan went to more than 6,615 contractors between 2007 […]