Donor Countries Concern Over Afghan Police Salary System: CE

Afghan Chief Executive says the international donor countries expressed concerns and doubt over the reports of the Ministry of Interior (MoI) from the exact number of Afghan forces and their salaries.

“The international donor countries have many questions over the payment system of MoI,” Abdullah said.

At the 20th Joint Coordination and Monitoring Board (JCMB)’s meeting for Afghans achievements, the CEO said 29 countries of the world praised the efforts of Afghan government but concerns over corruption in security institutions, particularly in MoI.

The Executive Officer stressed on reforms and noted the payment of Afghan forces salaries and inattention to the injured security forces have many problems.

 “The distribution process of Afghan forces salaries has many problems and security forces have many criticisms over the delay in addressing injured forces and the martyrs’ dead intensives,” said EO, Abdullah Abdullah.

Previously, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) said 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.

In one example, SIGAR said that Afghanistan’s 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.

Since 2002, the United States has spent more than $15 billion to build Afghanistan’s national police force.

Through a trust fund administered by the U.N. Development Program, the United States and other donor nations continue to fund police salaries and other costs.

But without reliable data from the Afghan government, SIGAR said, donor nations cannot plan accurately and cannot know with reliability how many police officers are serving in which part of the country.