Corruption: a big Challenge to the Afghan Government
In past few days, Kabul was hosting two important meetings of RECCA and SOM; their area of discussion was regional economic cooperation, the assistance of the international community with Afghanistan and the Afghan government’s achievement regarding tackling corruption to be presented to the international community. However, the financial assistance of the international community is related to the tackling corruption; but, there is not any significant achievement observed regarding tackling corruption yet.
Last week, a conference on tackling corruption was held by religious scholars in Kabul in which Ashraf Ghani urged on the role of scholars in tackling corruption and considered start of Jihad on limiting corruption by religious scholars as important. Mr. Ghani said that people and religious scholars in Afghanistan are not corrupt, but there are some officials and smugglers that have defamed Afghans.
A few weeks ago, a research center in Kabul had released a survey and had considered corruption as the third biggest problem of Afghans after insecurity and unemployment.
The Afghan government took some steps against corruption; however, it remains in the slogans only. President Ghani’s words against corruption in the conference of donor countries for Afghanistan, to a large extent, were just for attracting assistance.
Afghanistan and Corruption
Not only the people’s rights are not taken care, but a lot of Afghans pay millions of dollars as “tribute” to governmental officials as a result of corruption in the country. Besides that, corruption disgrace governments and even causes them to become collapsed or removed/taken by others. Therefore, corruption has played vital role in continuation of the governments; however, Afghanistan is not lonely the country that has faced this problem, but, there are several modern governments facing this problem, also.
According to the annual report of the Integrity Watch, Afghanistan held 4th position among the most corrupted countries in the world in 2014. According to the method of this survey, how much the points of a country decrease, that much the country is more involved in corruption. Afghanistan by receiving 12 points out of 100 points became 172nd among 175 countries after Somalia, North Korea and Sudan.
Latest Struggles against Corruption
Ashraf Ghani, during his Presidential Campaign was decisive in tackling corruption and had considered it as his government’s priority; and therefore, he, on the second day of his presidency, opened the biggest case in Afghanistan’s banking history. Moreover, he presented his article on Economic Reform in the London Conference; struggles against corruption were mentioned in it, also. Among them, the following three are worth mentioning:
- Formation of an “independent anti-corruption mission with time-bound prosecution powers,”
- The “reform of the Supreme Audit Agency,”
- The formation of a “national procurement board that will manage all large-value contracts,” and the “limitation of [the mandate of] ministries to strategy, policy and monitoring” while physical construction will be outsourced “through a national construction agency that uses standard cost register and publicly audited accounts.” [1]
Although, the above-mentioned anti-corruption bureau is yet to be established and reforms in the Supreme Audit Agency is yet to be brought, but, the national procurement board has started its work and investigations of contracts under the supervision of the President in ARG. Therefore, President Ashraf Ghani in past week’s religious scholars’ conference told that the government could save AFN 8.5 M through investigating the contracts only.
Roots of Corruption in Afghanistan
The main reason why the government could not eliminate corruption is existence of deep roots of corruption and corrupt powerful men in the country.
According to some surveys, the rate of corruption is high in contracts, customs and judicial organs and police; but, if we review the different surveys (2012 and 2014’s) of the Integrity Watch regarding corruption in the country, we would see that two administrations are involved in corruption more than others; they are: judicial organs and police.
Besides that, there is corruption in contracts and customs, also. Hence, President Ghani in his latest speech said: “50-60% discount is given to powerful men’s goods in customs…governmental contracts are the main sources of corruption and most of the contracts are given to unprofessional men.” [2]
Eliminating corruption from contacts, customs, judiciary and police does not seem that much easy and the government needs decisive decision and reforms, then. Corruption in judiciary organs can be decreased through reforms, however, reform and aggressive approach is needed in customs because most of them are under the influence of powerful men in provinces.
The Kabul Bank and Ministry of Urban Development and Housing Scandals
More than $1 B was stolen from Kabul Bank which was the biggest scandal in Afghanistan’s banking history. Ashraf Ghani reopened the Kabul Bank case in his second day of Presidency. According to Afghanistan’s Attorney General, 50% (440 Million Dollars) of the loans are received and efforts on receiving the remaining are going on.
Besides that, six senior officials of the Urban Development and Housing Ministry are accused with stealing of hundred millions of dollars, their file is with the Attorney General and it is expected to be sent to the court in near days.
But, these two are not the only files about corruption, and corruption is not going to be eliminated with resulting these two cases. Corruption is turned into a culture in most of the administrations in the country and opening one or two cases is not the solution for this big problem.
Solutions and Recommendation
Tackling corruption can be divided into two parts:
First: Influential Anti-corruption administrations and laws; Second: Implementation of Anti-Corruption laws.
As there are some anti-corruption laws made in Afghanistan and some other administrations are created on this purpose, however, the rate of corruption has not decreased in Afghanistan yet. The main reason is lack of implementation of anti-corruption policies. For example, the governmental officials should register their assets. Findings of the Integrity Watch Afghanistan specifies that so far, 9607 asset registration forms have been distributed to 16 provinces by the HOOAC; of which 3448 have not been filled by the government officials. [3]
Most of the world’s policy makers consider transparency as a first step toward tackling corruption. Therefore, they not only suggest access to information laws but they also raise their voice for bringing changes in present laws. However, the access to information law was ratified by the Parliament after a long delay in Afghanistan; this law still needs some changes to be brought in. For example, the terminologies of national security and national interests and etc. are not clearly defined in this law. [4]
Besides that, reforms are needed to be brought in banking system, also. According to Integrity Watch and SIGAR reports, Afghanistan’s banking sector remains fragile and in need of robust regulation by Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB). Further, forensic audits of major commercial banks in Afghanistan have identified systemic weaknesses in many areas of banking governance and operations, including personnel capacity, internal controls, accounting, credit analysis, and compliance with regulations. DAB’s ongoing limitations and inability to conduct robust oversight allows such weaknesses in Afghan banks to remain unchecked, heightening the risk of another banking crisis. [5]
Hong Kong is a good example for tackling corruption. Hong Kong was involved in corruption in 1960s and 1970s; however, it ended corruption through implementing a series of reforms. Establishing an administration was included in these reforms, this administration had three parts:
First: Implementation of Law; Second: Anti-corruption Researches; And Third: Raising Public Awareness
However, there are a lot of anti-corruption administrations established; but, the difference of this administration of Hong Kong with other countries’ administrations was that, Hong Kong focused about 70% on implementation of anti-corruption law. Besides that, capable, intelligent, well-trained and highly-educated people became hired in this administration that increased its influence a lot.
The End
[1] Christine Roehrs, Return of the Goodwill? London Conference as symbol of a new start, 1 december 2014, see online https://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/return-of-the-good-will-london-conference-as-symbol-for-a-new-start/
[2] See online:
http://www.bbc.com/pashto/afghanistan/2015/09/150901_hh-ghani-speech-on-corruption
[3] See online:
http://www.iwaweb.org/_news/news0034_asset_registration_process_of_gov_officials.html
[4] See online:
http://iwaweb.org/_news/news0020_signing_ati_law_by_afg_president.html
[5] See online: