By IRNA,
London : An all-party committee of MPs Monday called on the British government to account for the huge increase in costs of the war in Afghanistan.
“The government’s forecast for the costs of military operations in Afghanistan in this financial year reveals a significant increase compared to the last financial year,” the Defence Select Committee said.
Committee chair James Arbuthnot MP said that investment being made by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in better facilities and equipment for British troops in Afghanistan was “vital.”
“However, the reasons for the increases and the magnitude of costs in general are still not transparent enough. The MoD needs to provide a more coherent picture of what these costs really represent on the ground in future,” Arbuthnot said.
His call came as the committee published its report on the government’s Winter Supplementary Estimates for 2008-09, that shows the cost of operations in Afghanistan is 54.1 per cent higher at Pnds 2.318 billion (Dlrs 3.5 bn) than 2007-08 of Pnds 1.505 bn.
Although, the forecast operational costs for Britain’s other war in Iraq are broadly the same as the previous year, it also found increases in one or two areas, despite the expected drawdown of Britain’s remaining 4,100 troops deployed there in early 2009.
The annual additional estimates show that the net additional cost for the two wars are set to reach more than Pnds 13 billion by the end of the current financial year in March, with the Treasury being asked for an immediate Pnds 3.7 bn to cover escalating expenditure.
The latest estimated cost for the year is Pnds 1.4 bn for Iraq and Pnds 2.3 bn for Afghanistan, representing a combined increase of nearly 25 per cent over last year.
Defence analysts have suggested that the costs are expected to further soar after Foreign Secretary David Miliband last month admitted that the UK did not rule out sending more troops to Afghanistan.
The defence committee also called on the MoD earlier this year to account for the growing costs of the wars, after previously accusing the government of waging wars without gaining parliament’s approval for the extra expenditure.
In a book last year, Joseph Stiglitz, former World Bank chief economist, and Harvard University lecturer, reported that UK costs of the two wars, was expected to rise to more than Dlrs 40 billion, including social costs, by 2010.