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Corruption in Afghanistan Undermines Efforts to Rebuild Country: SEGAR
The U.S. government’s Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SEGAR) report released Wednesday said that widespread corruption in Afghanistan has undermined efforts to rebuild the country and urged the U.S. mission to make anticorruption efforts a top priority.
The US report said corruption fueled grievances against the Afghan government and channeled material support to the insurgency.
The report, entitled: “Corruption in Conflict: Lessons from the U.S. Experience in Afghanistan,” suggests the U.S. government should have viewed anticorruption as an essential part of its goals after the 2001 U.S.-led invasion that toppled the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
SIGAR’s report quoted Ryan Crocker, who re-opened the U.S. Embassy in Kabul soon after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and served again as ambassador in 2011-2012 as saying that “the ultimate point of failure for our efforts . wasn’t an insurgency. It was the weight of endemic corruption.”
“The corruption lens has got to be in place at the outset, and even before the outset, in the formulation of reconstruction and development strategy, because once it gets to the level I saw . it’s somewhere between unbelievably hard and outright impossible to fix,” Crocker added.
The report further noted that U.S. policies and practices were partly to blame for the growth of corruption. In 2009 and 2010, the emerging concern was that poor U.S. oversight, procurement, and contracting practices were enabling corrupt behavior, it said. Without sufficient controls on U.S. funds, millions of dollars in U.S. reconstruction funds for Afghanistan were being wasted.
“In Afghanistan today, corruption remains an enormous challenge to security, political stability, and development,” SIGAR said.
Meanwhile, Political critics of the government have also considered the Afghan politicians have failed in fight against corruption.
According to them, employing corrupt figures in the regime is causing more corruption.
While the Presidential Palace called the corruption a heritage from the previous government, it emphasizes that the leaders of National Unity Government have serious will in fighting against corruption.
More than $100bn in aid after 2001 helped enrich patronage networks and powerbrokers, discrediting international donors in the eyes of the Afghan population. And whenever the US did attempt to improve accountability, the Afghan government resisted, the report says.
As a result, corruption – which had permeated Afghan public life for centuries – swelled to unprecedented levels.
Sigar partly blames the Afghan government, though it has lived up to some commitments to donors, such as forming an independent anti-corruption committee. The committee, however, receives “uneven political support”, Sigar says, and has no legal authority.
Sigar’s conclusions cohere with the view of analysts in Kabul. There is a direct link between US funds feeding corruption and the erosion of security, said Toofan Waziri, a security analyst.
The lack of results in eradicating corruption has disappointed supporters of President Ashraf Ghani, a former World Bank technocrat who campaigned on pledges to do just that. Since he took power in September 2014, Ghani has failed to recover almost $1bn stolen in a giant fraud at Kabul Bank.
Three road construction projects worth about one billion Afghanis started in capital Kabul on Saturday.
The projects were inaugurated by Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.
The projects are: the second phase of Kotal Khairkhane road, the first part of the Shahid square to Qasaba, and the Airport road to Gumruk.
In the inauguration ceremony, Mullah Baradar said that Kabul municipality is working hard to beautify and regulate the city, and people should cooperate with the government in protecting public benefit projects.
He directed the officials of Kabul municipality to complete the mentioned projects on time and with good quality.
The second phase of Kotel Khairkhaneh road is 2.5 kilometers long and 60 meters wide. Thie road will cost 364 million Afghanis and will be completed in 20 months.
The Shahid square-Qasaba road is 1.8 kilometers long and 45 meters wide, which will be built at a cost of 175 million Afghanis in one year.
The Airport-Gumruk road is 2.7 km long and 60 meters wide, which will be completed at a cost of 407 million Afghanis in 20 months.
The projects are funded by Kabul Municipality.
Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu said on Friday that the main threat for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) members emanates from Afghanistan where international terrorist groups find shelter due to unstable and indefinite political situation.
Speaking at a meeting of the SCO defense ministers in Kazakhstan’s capital Astana, Shoygu said Washington has stepped up efforts to restore its positions in Central and South Asia that were lost after the withdrawal of coalition troops from Afghanistan, Anadolu Agency reported.
The military chief called “unacceptable” the deployment of the American military infrastructure in the region, arguing that intentions should be regarded as “a direct threat to stability in the SCO space.”
According to him, the US is trying to impose a new security system in the Asia-Pacific region for dominance.
This comes as the Islamic Emirate has repeatedly emphasized that it does not allow anyone to pose threats to any other country from Afghanistan soil.
Recently, Mohammad Yaqub Mujahid, Acting Minister of National Defense Mohammad Yaqub Mujahid said that no destructive groups including Daesh have physical presence in Afghanistan,
In a statement on the occasion of the 32nd anniversary of the victory of the Mujahideen against the then communist government, the Islamic Emirate said that it is a day of freedom of the Afghan nation.
The Islamic Emirate described the coup by People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan on 27th April 1978 as a dark day in history, as a result of which the people of Afghanistan suffered severe human and financial losses.
The statement said that the Afghan nation suffered huge casualties in their 14-year struggle against the thoughts and actions of the communists, as 1.5 million people died and millions more faced various hardships.
“After 20 years of Jihad, our country was freed from another occupation and the Islamic system was established, so the Islamic Emirate will make its utmost efforts so that the fruits of decades of sacrifice and struggle of this nation are not wasted,” the statement said.
“It was the wish of the martyrs to fully implement the Islamic system in the country, and therefore, the Islamic Emirate is trying to facilitate development and prosperity under the shadow of the Islamic system in order to realize the goals of the Afghan people’s jihads,” it added.
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