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Report Finds US Spent $43 Million On Gas Station In Afghanistan

A petrol station employee fills up the tank of a car at a fuel station in the Shomali Plain, some 20 kilometers north of Kabul in Afghanistan on February 22, 2011. (Shah Marai/AFP/Getty Images)
A petrol station employee fills up the tank of a car at a fuel station in the Shomali Plain, some 20 kilometers north of Kabul in Afghanistan on February 22, 2011. (Shah Marai/AFP/Getty Images)

It’s being called “the world’s most expensive gas station.” In a new report, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction is asking U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter why nearly $43 million was spent to construct a compressed natural gas filling station in Afghanistan.

The report found the project should have cost no more than $500,000. The Department of Defense has said they have no explanation for the enormous costs.

NPR’s Philip Reeves tells Here & Now‘s Peter O’Dowd about the project and about the call for an investigation.

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