US to closely monitor aid to Pakistan to ensure proper usage: Boucher
London, Apr. 1 : Echoing President Barack Obama's stance that Pakistan would be made accountable for all the assistance it will receive, the US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher has said that Washington would not let the aid go unchecked, and that it will closely monitor its proper usage.
Boucher said that Obama wants stability and wants extremism to be rooted out completely from the region.
"The US aid in this context will not go unchecked this time as US special representative Richard Holbrooke will make sure the aid money be properly reached to deserving people," Boucher said.
In a television interview, Boucher said additional civilian troops would be sent to both Pakistan and Afghanistan to monitor the proper distribution of aid and help the local authorities in launching development projects in the remote and under developed areas of the region.
"Projects like agricultural development, economic growth, energy and power generations will be established following US aid," The News quoted Boucher, as saying.
Earlier, the former US Presidential candidate and Republican Party Senator from Arizona John Mc Gain said that the US aid to Pakistan may eventually go in vain.
Skeptical about Pakistan's utilization of the US assistance, Mc Gain viewed a large part of the aid failing to reach people who were in real need of it.
"Most part of the US will fail to reach the destitute people and those who deserve it badly," Mc Gain said. (ANI)