As Kabul prepares for direct talks with Taliban to establish legitimacy in the face of insurgency, rampant corruption is fast eroding average Afghanis’ trust in the state and threatening to undermine efforts for sustainable peace.
Rated among 10 least peaceful places in the world, Afghanistan also ranks among five of the 10 most corrupt countries in Transparency International’s assessment. Citizens paid a staggering $3.9 billion in bribes to government officials to get public services, according to figures for the year 2012..
The United States, as part of a Quadrilateral Coordination Group that also includes Afghanistan, Pakistan and China, is pushing for reconciliation with the Taliban insurgents in a bid to disentangle militarily and the group is expecting direct talks between the Afghan officials and Taliban that Islamabad will host in March.
But corruption watchdogs believe any efforts for peace in Afghanistan will be untenable in the face of growing malpractices which continue to plague the war-torn country for years and now reaching a menacing proportion.
“Afghanistan is a country at war, and if the government loses the trust of the people, it will have no chances of winning,” said Sayd Ikram Afzali, Executive Direcctor of Integrity Watch Afghanistan (IWA).
The IWA partnered with TI to carry out the first-ever comprehensive assessment of the country’s capacity to fight corruption.
The report covers all key institutions and laws, including police and judiciary which are at the heart of corruption, a problem Afghan President Abdul Ghani is struggling to tackle with.
Titled “National Integrity System Assessment: Afghanistan 2015”, the report ranked delivery of justice as the top priority area where the government urgently needs to act to restore public confidence in the state.
According to the report, less than half of victims of violence and crimes in Afghanistan report incidents to police and the judiciary is rated as the “most corrupt institution” by its citizens. Politicians and influential are accused of blocking police investigations to safeguard their cronies and judicial decisions are largely seen as biased in favor of the government and the parliament.
That leads to a dysfunctional justice system in which corruption largely goes unpunished, and those with power enjoy impunity, the report observed.
“Afghanistan urgently needs strong and independent institutions, free from political influence, with genuine capacity to prevent and prosecute corruption,” said Srirak Plipat, Regional Director of TI’s Asia Pacific chapter.
The assessment also largely blamed corruption as reason for state’s failure to provide basic services to its citizens.
In spite of heavy investment, mainly by the United States that runs into tens of billions of dollars, red-tapism and Afghanistan’s highly centralized public sector is struggling to provide even basic services to citizens.
The inefficient delivery of basic services is also blamed on officials who made it to the government departments through connections and corruptions rather than recruited on merit. Failure to cater to people’s basic needs is destroying public trust in the state, the report observed.
A “lack of integrity among elected officials,” is another area that has become a conduit to breeding corruption. Many lawmakers are using relatives as their front-men to run large private businesses to fund their luxurious lifestyles. The anti-corruption commission said it registered the assets of 8,000 officials, but the report that only 66 had been published as of 2012.
Adding to this dismal situation is the widespread abuse of power, where members of parliament are found to have physically assaulted police officers and are accused of receiving cash or favor in return for voting to protect ministers from no-confidence.
The report also proposes a number of measures to fix the system that must provide some relief to common man in Afghanistan’s minefields of troubles.
