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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.
Turkish Airlines will resume its flights to Afghanistan tomorrow (Tuesday), officials said on Monday.
The Ministry of Transport said that a Turkish Airlines plane will land in Kabul airport on Tuesday.
“Tomorrow, Turkish Airlines will resume its flights to Kabul International Airport. There will be four flights between Kabul and Istanbul per week. This is good news for Afghan travelers. For those Afghans who travel to European countries, they can move easily through Turkey,” said Imamuddin Ahmadi, the spokesman of the Ministry of Transport.
However, the Chamber of Commerce and Investment emphasized that visas should be provided to businessmen and citizens of the country, otherwise companies will benefit the most, not Afghan citizens and businessmen.
“Not a single passenger is allowed, the reason is that they do not issue visas. If the Turks don’t start issuing visas, or the Arabs don’t issue visas, the plane will come for the cargo and there will be little movement of people,” said Khanjan Alokozay, a member of the Chamber of Commerce and Investment.
In a meeting with Rosemary DiCarlo, Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, the Deputy Prime Minister said the Islamic Emirate will participate in the third Doha meeting if its “position” is accepted.
He said that Afghanistan is under the complete control of the Islamic Emirate and that the country “has an Emir” and the government is “obeyed”.
According to a statement issued by Mawlavi Abdul Kabir’s office, the deputy prime minister told DiCarlo: “The previous meeting in Doha was incomplete due to some shortcomings of its organizers, and the position of the Islamic Emirate should be accepted in the next meeting so that the delegation of the Islamic Emirate will participate in it.”
The Secretary General of the United Nations once expressed regret for the Islamic Emirate’s non-participation in the Doha meeting, but at the same time said that accepting the demands of the Islamic Emirate is equivalent to its recognition.
Meanwhile, the Islamic Emirate is asking the United Nations and other countries to recognize them as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.
Kabir said that the Islamic Emirate has fulfilled all its obligations and “rules over the entire geography of Afghanistan… There is a central government in all of Afghanistan that has an emir and is obeyed.”
The United Nations is expected to hold the third Doha meeting with the participation of special representatives of countries for Afghanistan, but it has not set a date for it yet.
The Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs of the United Nations meanwhile visited Kabul this week and invited the Islamic Emirate’s officials to participate in the Doha meeting.
According to the deputy prime minister’s office, DiCarlo informed Kabir about the Doha meeting and said that “the Islamic Emirate’s conditions for participating in this meeting are not difficult.”
She expressed hope that a delegation of the Islamic Emirate will participate.
She said that representatives of a number of international organizations and countries have been invited to the Doha meeting, including the World Bank.
Afghanistan’s former president Hamid Karzai, and the country’s former CEO Abdullah Abdullah met with Rosemary DiCarlo, Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs this weekend, regarding the third Doha meeting.
In a statement issued by Karzai’s office, it is stated that during the meeting they emphasized the need to help and support the people of Afghanistan and said that they considered education in Afghanistan essential.
They also emphasized the need for national understanding to achieve peace.
DiCarlo, who is on a trip to Kabul, has already met and discussed numerous issues with a number of officials of the Islamic Emirate.
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