NEW DELHI (TrustLaw) – Afghanistan’s plans to fight rampant corruption in the impoverished nation fall drastically short, with no real measures to provide accountability to the public who see the government as the main source of the menace, experts say.
Ranked by Transparency International as the second most corrupt country in the world after Somalia, insurgency-wracked Afghanistan is plagued with graft with public posts for sale, justice at a price and daily bribing for basic services which are supposed to be free to the people.
Under increasing pressure from the international community, which provides billions of dollars of vital aid to the war-ravaged nation, President Hamid Karzai pledged a series of measures to tackle corruption in January.
The measures include empowering an independent High Office of Oversight and Anti-Corruption to investigate guilty officials, establishing a Major Crimes Task Force, an Anti-Corruption Tribunal and adopting comprehensive legislation to make Afghan laws consistent with the United Nations Convention against Corruption.
But analysts say the steps, agreed with donors at an international conference in London, are “merely good intentions” which lack substance and ignore empowering the Afghan people to hold public servants accountable.
“My biggest concern regarding the measures adopted is that they are not focusing on service delivery and they are not insisting on the role of citizens and a bottom-up approach, i.e. external accountability measures,” said Yama Torabi, co-director of Integrity Watch Afghanistan (IWA).
“All measures announced either represent a narrow law enforcement concern or government internal reform agenda, with no significant progress for ordinary Afghans.”
Analysts say Karzai’s plans to combat graft will be under scrutiny in July when international donors meet at a follow-up conference in Kabul to examine what progress has been made.
PUBLIC TRANSPARENCY
Afghanistan has seen over three decades of violence. Since 1978, successive groups have vied for control over the country, first with the invasion of Soviet forces, followed by civil unrest during which various mujahideen factions waged war against each other for power.
The Taliban emerged from the chaos of civil war in 1996 and imposed its own hard-line brand of Islam for five years until late 2001 when U.S.-backed Afghan forces toppled the regime.
While efforts have been made to reconstruct and develop the country, corruption has risen to alarming levels with the U.N. reporting that Afghans paid $2.5 billion in bribes alone last year.
A November 2009 survey by British charity Oxfam found that almost half of Afghans interviewed saw corruption as one of the main drivers of conflict in the country.
The “Cost of War” – a survey based on interviews with over 700 people across 14 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces – found there was widespread perception that corruption contributed to fuelling the spread of insecurity.
Experts say mechanisms for public complaints, sharing local administration budgets and empowering the media and civil society organisations to get the information to Afghan citizens will go a long way in improving the government’s credibility and preventing poor, disaffected people from joining insurgent movements.
“Local communities should have access to a certain degree of information so that they can hold the officials accountable,” said Laurent Saillard, director of the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief (ACBAR), which has over 100 local and national non-governmental organisations as members.
“What about sharing more information about the use of taxpayer’s money? What budget is allocated to what provinces, technical departments, and ministries and to achieve what?”
The media and civil society could really help to put positive pressure on local authorities and improve local governance simply by channelling the relevant information to the population, Saillard added.
FOREIGN AID FLOWS
Over the last eight years, donors have poured more than $20 billion into Afghanistan, ranked by the United Nations as one of the world’s poorest and least developed countries, second only to Niger.
But corruption has also plagued foreign aid flows which experts say are being exposed to corruption and waste on the part of the government, aid agencies and private contractors.
Government officials and international aid workers have been accused of mismanagement of funds and taking bribes. Some companies that won contracts to rebuild the country have been accused of leaving behind them shoddy roads, hospitals and schools or even nothing at all.
Donors have spent most aid money outside state channels to avoid it being siphoned off by corrupt officials. But they are doing so without telling the Afghan government how and where the funds are being spent.
At the January conference, foreign donors promised that they would increase the amount of aid going through the Afghan government from 20 percent currently to 50 percent in the next two years, if corruption is curbed.
Experts say Karzai’s measures need to show how more resources can be directed to lower levels of the state and society – to communities themselves – where it is not easy for corruption to take place and where there is greater accountability.
They say that bodies like the government’s National Solidarity Programme, which is underfunded despite being the only agency capable of delivery services to all Afghan provinces and districts, should be seen as pivotal to this process.
“The Afghan government is still the one that needs to channel the aid money,” said IWA’s Yama Torabi. “Not least because it has to be seen as delivering the services if the aim is to build a state.”
“OPAQUE” RECRUITMENT
Analysts also say Karzai’s measures fail to provide details on how the government planned to deal with corrupt police and officials – many of whom hold the highest levels of public office – who are exempt from scrutiny.
The U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called graft “an assault on the integrity of the state and people's well-being”, adding that Afghans had suffered for far too long from a culture of impunity and the lack of rule of law.
Analysts say tackling this problem is crucial and the first step is to start with the current recruitment process for the civil service. The process is “totally opaque” and often based on ethnicity and other criteria, rather than on competence, said ACBAR’s Saillard.
Analysts say there needs to be a totally transparent recruitment process with the public announcement of vacancies, selection criteria, recruitment process and results. Terms of reference and responsibilities should be clearly defined and people should be held personally liable.
Aid workers add that impunity should not be tolerated and a clear sign should be given to the Afghan people.
“There must be rigorous implementation of the government’s anti-corruption strategy, and that means tackling corruption at all levels, to show everyone that there is a real commitment to improving accountability to the Afghan people,” said Ashley Jackson, head of Policy and Advocacy for Oxfam in Kabul.
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