The future of Afghanistan in the shadow of corruption

By: Syrializm Analytics

The political situation in Afghanistan remains worrying in light of the continuing situation of violence in many parts of the country, as the Taliban still controlling a quarter of the country, and still constitute a strong pressure on the government of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who, despite the failure to publish the results of the presidential elections officially and fully However, it seems that things are going as they are.

Today, when someone asks the public opinion in Afghanistan about their opinion on the reality of the country, we find that the Afghans don’t consider the Taliban an almost problem as is the case with the corruption of the government.

In other words, as a result of the miserable situation in the country, popular support for the Taliban has increased, compared to Afghan government, despite all US and western efforts in the war since 2001.

Even the United States, after nearly 18 years in Afghanistan, reached to the fact of the need to negotiate with the Taliban to reach for political solution that would end US involvement in the country and bring what the West describes as peace.

Of course, the Afghan people won’t support a government they find as corrupt as the government led by Ashraf Ghani in Kabul.

Rampant corruption in the country is one of the most important factors that will cause the Taliban to return at some point, back to power.

And because of the corruption in Afghanistan, which can only be described as appalling, a number of facts must be known.

The Afghan government not only imposed taxes on its people for the money that was transferred for reconstruction and infrastructure development in the country, but also taxed the materials it brought by the American reconstruction effort.

The funds came from the United State aren’t kept in any type of private fund, and therefore their fate is subject to the authorities that control the country.

Several months ago, a report on the state of corruption in the country was issued.

This report addresses a number of basic questions, as the Special Inspector General for Reconstruction of Afghanistan technically believes that Afghan anti-corruption agencies have what it takes to do their work, while they lack the capacity, resources and security.

One of the funny fact in that report, the story of, the usage of lie detectors, which was used, but it’s usage were limited, because they could be used to detect fraudsters in the country.

However, it can’t be used on members of the Afghan government!

The report cites information about conducting a second round of polygraph tests and annual follow-up tours of the justice center’s anti-corruption staff and the country’s major crime task force.

But in fact, the institutions responsible for enforcing anti-corruption laws in Afghanistan are exposed to the country’s corruption networks.

Corruption networks in Afghanistan aren’t limited to bribery, fraud and extortion, but it goes beyond that to drug gangs in the country.

It’s well known that Afghanistan is the largest producer of opium in the world, and consequently, the country exports various quantities of heroin in various ways.

Kandahar, work in drug cultivation is criminalized, but Helmand Province is known to be the “opium capital of the world”.

Today, the drug export crisis in the country is one of the most dangerous challenges facing the countries of the world, especially Afghanistan neighboring countries, those located in its regional surroundings, from the former Soviet republics in Central Asia to reach even all of India, China, Pakistan, Iran and Russia.

All of this is just a simple start to discuss Afghanistan’s problems.

Even the corrupt officials in the country are powerful and influenced figures, including even those considered to be from the class of former warlords in the country, since the period of the Soviet occupation, the stage of the civil war, and the stage for the Taliban in power in the late nineties, to the stage of its overthrow after the American intervention, a period that legalized the existence of many of those figures in power and the future of the country, simply, and only because they cooperated with the American forces and are still cooperating with them to this day, as many of them have assumed official positions at the time, and when talking about corruption in the country and the United States expresses its anger at the situation, somehow, the fact and the matter is, the majority of the blame should be actually on the Americans.

There is no doubts of the inability of the Kabul government which is ((originally corrupt) to confront corruption.

Returning to the report, the report generously indicated every sign that the Kabul government could put in place that met the standards and laws issued that concerned reform efforts in the country.

The strategy primarily focuses on 15 priority ministries, but leaves the role of the largest ministry in Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defense, unclear.

Against the background of the problem of the delay in calculating the election results in the country, a corruption scandal arose regarding the chief adviser to President Ashraf Ghani, who is Finance Minister Mohamed Qayoumi, who is suspected of receiving money from foreign organizations, trading in jobs and positions, as well as wasting budget funds.

Added to this is the fact that Qayoumi received money from the State Effectiveness and Efficiency Institute, which was established by President Ashraf Ghani in 2013.

The documents, which reached the hands of journalists, say that, from 2016 to 2017, Qayoumi received more than $ 350,000 from the State Effectiveness Institute, registered in the United States.

Naser Timuri, the representative of the anti-corruption watchdog, the NGO, was unable to dispel doubts, saying that the Afghan government and the State Effectiveness Institute declined to comment on these documents.

The uproar caused by the media didn’t subside even after Qayoumi’s answers, who appeared before the complaints committee under the dome of Parliament on the fourth of last November.

Moreover, according to sources from the Afghan government, a trial will be held in the near future for the possible use of foreign funds in President Ghani’s election campaign and transferring it to the accounts of the President’s relatives.

In the end, which means that the Afghan President, through his Minister of Finance, facilitated the allocation of funds coming from a non-governmental organization, “The State Effectiveness Institute”, and then those funds allocated from the Institute subsequently settled in the accounts of the relatives of Ashraf Ghani.

Here, doubts revolve around the President and his Lebanese wife, Rula Ghani, in addition to a number of his relatives, to powerful personalities in the state and ministers in the government, especially the Finance Minister.

The leaked documents estimate that the looted amounts are estimated at about 500 million USD.

Here, we still have to ask, while the United States seeks to negotiate with the Taliban, while corruption ravages the ribs of the country’s government, no one disagrees that, once the United States continues an agreement with the Taliban, it is possible to tame the movement regarding details of terrorism-related, So that, with the increasing public anger and corruption of the Kabul government, we won’t be surprised that on the day when the American and NATO forces will leave the country, the Taliban leaders will suspend those who fall into the hands of the country’s rulers on the gallows.

Here, we’d like to congratulate the United States on its victory in the war on terrorism after 19 years in Afghanistan.