Business
Embezzlement in Afghan customs; $1 billion annually lost to graft
More than $1 billion annually is being lost to embezzlement from the Afghan customs revenues.
Integrity Watch of Afghanistan said Tuesday local tyrants have embezzled millions of dollars from Herat customs, adding that the government has no plan to prevent stealing of public treasury.
A statistic shared by officials from Herat customs shows that the customs have more than 30 billion AFN incomes per year but less than 20 billion AFN had been collected in the government’s account.
Since 1390, the Persian calendar, the Ministry of Finance and Herat customs have recorded annual revenue figures as follow:
In 1390, Herat Customs had 16 billion AFN incomes. The revenues in 1392 declined to 13 billion AFN and decreased to 9 billion AFN in 1393 compared to the previous years.
The statistics show 12 billion AFN incomes in 1394, while the figure increased to 20 billion AFN in 1396 and 1397. On 1398 the incomes once again declined to 16 billion AFN.
Meanwhile, in Twitter and Facebook posts a senior official of Herat customs has also shared daily incomes of the organization for the current year: On March 4, daily income was 136 million AFN, on July 8 the revenue was 119 million AFN and on July 9 the income was 122 million AFN, according to the statistics.
The incomes of the organization reportedly could reach 33 billion AFN in the current year, figures show.
The Ministry of Finance, however, says not only the customs of Herat but also no customs across the country have the same revenue per year, due to a high volume of goods.
The National Statistics and Information Authority (NSIA) confirmed Tuesday that in the last month of solar year 1402, (March 2024) Afghanistan’s exports totaled $141.1 million and imports totaled $789.6 million.
This was down from $174 million for exports in the same period in 1401. However, imports increased by $99.2 million in 1402, up from $690.4 million.
Most exports in the last month of 1402 went to Pakistan, India and the United Arab Emirates, while in the last month of 1401 exports went to Pakistan, India and China.
The Ministry of Interior said the governor of Herat province Islam Jar met with Alim Khan Yasin Gildaye, Ambassador of Kazakhstan to Afghanistan, to discuss various issues around trade.
According to the ministry, the two sides discussed the expansion of trade facilities, increasing the volume of trade exchanges between traders of the two countries, reducing customs tariffs, solving the challenges of traders and issuing visas to them.
The Afghanistan-Kazakhstan Chamber of Commerce has been opened in Herat in order to facilitate and increase trade between the two countries.
The Ministry of Industry and Commerce (MoIC) says Afghanistan has reached self-sufficiency in 45 sectors and the production of 133 items, and that the ministry is striving to change Afghanistan from an importing country to an exporting one.
The ministry officials said that for this purpose, supporting domestic products and attracting investment is essential.
The ministry’s spokesman Abdul Salam Jawad Akhundzada emphasized increasing the use of domestic goods and products in government and national projects and added that efforts have also begun to find a market for domestic products inside and outside the country.
“We have reached self-sufficiency in 133 items of production, which is 45 sectors, and also we reached the capacity of semi-self-sufficiency in 95 items of production, which is 27 sectors,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Chamber of Industries and Mines (ACIM) says over the past two and a half years, more attention has been paid to the development of domestic production and it is also expanding.
The chamber officials stressed expanding the culture of using domestic products in government projects.
“I think that the government is one of the biggest consumers in the market if it uses domestic products in all its development projects,” said Abdul Nasir Rashtia, a member of ACIM.
Economic experts also said that if the use of domestic products in government projects increases, Afghanistan will quickly move towards economic independence.
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