KABUL — Contracting with the U.S. military to make boots for Afghan soldiers and police doubled the workforce at Farhad Saffi’s factory and guaranteed steady business for months — possibly years — to come.
In the eyes of the U.S. military, the boot deal was another step toward building up Afghanistan’s economy and business culture and giving Afghans a stake in their government to help counter support for the Taliban insurgency.
For hard-pressed security forces, it means they aren’t going to war in plastic sandals or ill-fitting sneakers.
“We are proud that these boots are Afghan-made. They, the soldiers, are proud as well,” said Saffi, dressed in a natty suit and tie as he showed visitors around his assembly line in a nondescript factory on the east side of Kabul.
Saffi’s company, Kabul Milli Trading Ltd., won the boot contract as part of a year-old program known as Afghan First, run by the coalition and administered mainly by officers from the U.S. Air Force. It aims to source needed products locally to build up the Afghan construction industry and manufacturing base battered by three decades of near-continuous warfare.
“Part of our counterinsurgency strategy is to employ people,” said Air Force Col. Lawrence G. Avery, who heads the program from his office inside a fortified U.S. military base in Kabul.
While Avery chalks up some of the program’s successes, it still faces a host of challenges. Afghan-made products must compete with cheap imports, construction delays and substandard quality — plus a business culture saturated by kickbacks and corruption and the ever-present insurgency, which makes business travel and the transportation of goods a perilous undertaking.
Crime and insurgent attacks against companies working with foreign forces are also major concerns.
“They feel like there’s always the possibility of retaliation,” Avery said of the local companies he deals with.
This year, Afghan First plans to award more than $500 million in contracts for equipment and another $2 billion for construction projects, mainly stackable buildings made from converted shipping containers and bases for the Afghan police and army.
Local boot production will employ 1,500 Afghans and generate savings of $160 million over the next five years, the military says.
Anemic economy
By almost any measure, Afghanistan’s economy is primitive and mired in inefficiencies.
$14 billion: gross national product (The United States’ GNP is about $14 trillion.)
$1,000: per capita income
35 percent: unemployment
5.7 percent: Workforce employed in industry, as opposed to 78.6 percent engaged in agriculture
