WASHINGTON A $7.3 million base camp built to house 175 Afghan Border Police was sitting virtually empty two months after it was handed over to Afghan authorities, and some equipment like wood-burning stoves had been dismantled, U.S. inspectors reported on Tuesday. 
 
 The facility, located in Kunduz Province, consisted of 12 buildings, including a dining hall, that were contracted by the Army Corps of Engineers and completed September 3, 2012, according to a report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. 
 
 Inspectors who visited the site to ensure construction by Omran Construction, Consulting and Engineering Co was carried out according to contract found only a dozen Afghan personnel at the camp and nearly all of the buildings locked, SIGAR reported. 
 
 "These findings are similar to a July 2012 inspection of Afghan Border Police facilities in Nangarhar province, where we noted that $19 million was spent to construct four Border Police sites, yet the facilities were unoccupied or not being used as intended," SIGAR reported. "As a result, we question the need to construct a site of this size and design at this location." 
 
 The inspectors found no major construction quality issues, the report said, but they were only able to inspect three of the buildings because the caretakers did not have keys for most of the site. The 12 Afghan personnel said they were not aware of any plans to move additional staff to the facility, SIGAR said. 
 
 The NATO Training Mission for Afghanistan said in response that the Afghan Border Police had decided to reduce the size of its force in the area to 59 by the time the camp had been completed. Most of the force would be dispersed throughout the region for daily operations, so the camp would rarely be at full capacity, the report said. 
 
 The inspectors said most of the buildings "appeared unused" and wood-burning stoves made of brick near the base dining facility had been dismantled. The SIGAR report included a photo of piles of bricks outside the empty building where the stoves had stood two months earlier when the camp was completed. 
 
 The NATO training mission, in a response, said the police had dismantled the stoves because the pots they were using were larger than the available cooking area on the stoves provided. The Afghans have now built a new larger stove and are using that, the report said. 
 
 The Border Police camp was built based on plans to grow the size of Afghan military and police forces to 352,000 people. The Afghan force is later expected to shrink to a more sustainable size. 
 
 The special inspector general recommended the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the NATO training mission re-evaluate plans for constructing Afghan police facilities and determine whether contracts are appropriately sized for the force they plan. 
 
 Inspectors also determined that sustaining the Border Police facility would require people with the skills needed to do maintenance on electrical generators, fueling stations, water treatment systems and heating and air conditioning systems. 
 
 "There is neither an operation and maintenance contract nor a plan to train Afghan personnel to operate and maintain equipment," the SIGAR report concluded. "This raises questions about the Afghan government's ability to sustain the facility." 
 
 (Editing by Eric Walsh) ||||| After the U.S. government spent $7.3 million on a 12-building compound for the Afghan police, American investigators have found that the compound sits largely unused and the few policemen who are housed there don't even have the keys to most of the buildings. 
 
 According to a report released today by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), the Imam Sahib Border Police Company Headquarters in the Kunduz Province in Afghanistan was meant to service 175 police officers when it was given over to Afghan authorities in September 2012. When SIGAR investigators visited the facility two months later, however, only "about" 12 officers were there and they said they were unaware of any plans to move any additional staff over. 
 
 In addition, the investigators were only able to actually get inside three of the 12 buildings because those Afghan officers didn't have the keys to the others. The investigators resorted to peeking through windows to try to evaluate the interiors of those buildings. 
 
 DOWNLOAD: SIGAR Report on the Imam Sahib Border Police Company Headquarters in Kunduz Province (PDF) 
 
 The SIGAR inspectors said that plans to use some of the facilities were also unclear and one building that was meant for administrative work was being used as living space. The barracks, which were designed to house the police officers, were unoccupied. The facility also had no back-up electricity, the report said. 
 
 "The site is fairly new, largely unoccupied, and, to date, has had little need for operation and maintenance support," the report says. 
 
 In the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan's response to the SIGAR findings, which was included in the report, officials explained that the Afghan staffing requirement had changed from 175 people for a "combined battalion and company headquarters" when the facility was planned to a 59-person company headquarters by the time it was completed. "Due to dispersed daily operations," the report said, "facilities would rarely be at full capacity." 
 
 Taking this facility as a lesson, the SIGAR recommended, among other things, that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) review other construction plans for Afghan Border Police facilities to make sure they are being built with operational requirements in mind. The USACE concurred with a majority of the recommendations and plans to review other facility plans.
– A $7.3 million, 12-building compound built by the US Army Corps of Engineers for the Afghan Border Police resembled a ghost town just two months after it was handed over to Afghan authorities, Reuters reports. Inspectors found just 12 personnel at the Kunduz province base camp, which had been built for 175 officers. Most of the buildings appeared unused and equipment like wood-burning stoves had already been dismantled. The investigators had to peer through windows of most of the buildings because the personnel on site only had keys to three of them, ABC reports. The inspectors recommended that the US Army take another look at plans for building other border police facilities to ensure they are appropriately sized. Their report noted that sustaining the Kunduz facility would require people with the skills to maintain electrical generators, fueling stations, and water treatment systems, but there are no plans in place to train anybody.