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Afghanistan is unable to adequately track personnel and pay within its police force despite more than 13 years and billions of dollars of outside assistance, a U.S. watchdog said Monday, highlighting concerns about security forces as the United States and other Western nations withdraw.

In a new audit report, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), an independent U.S. government body, said the United States, United Nations and NATO also bear responsibility for failing to resolve persistent weaknesses in the Afghan Interior Ministrys management of police units across the country.

Now, as the Western presence in Afghanistan grows smaller, the ability of donor countries to exercise proper oversight will only diminish, SIGAR warned in its report.

There is a significant risk that a large portion of the more than $300million in annual U.S. government funding for [Afghan police] salaries will be wasted or abused if the problems are not addressed, SIGAR said.

More than 13 years after the international mission in Afghanistan began, a reduced U.S. and NATO force is now focused on supporting Afghan police and soldiers in their fight against the Taliban. By 2017, the United States will have only a small contingent of troops, attached to the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.

The shortcomings of Afghanistans police take on new urgency in light of Iraqi security forces failure this summer to halt a major advance by the Islamic State militant group. The collapse of much of Iraqs military, which was trained by the United States from 2003 to 2011, exposed the deterioration of Iraqi forces following the U.S. withdrawal.

SIGAR said that problems with management of Afghanistans police, which numbers about 153,000 people, included Afghan officials failure to properly use electronic and other systems for ensuring that salaries go to the right troops.

In one example, SIGAR said that Afghanistans police do not properly use identification cards issued to each recruit in part to track attendance. Potentially even more worrying, the report said officials do not confiscate the cards of troops who leave police service, meaning there are almost 150,000 invalid cards in circulation.

Inadequate tracking could heighten the polices vulnerability to the kind of widespread corruption that has eroded many Afghans faith in government institutions over the past decade. While the countrys army has a positive reputation among many Afghans, the police are more problematic.

SIGAR also found that it is difficult for outside officials to cross-check data provided by the Afghan government. The watchdog faulted what it described as inadequate oversight by the United Nations and the U.S.-led NATO force in Afghanistan.

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Watchdog: Afghanistan unable to properly track, pay police