AFGHANISTAN WITHERED BY CORRUPTION

 

Corruption is at an alarming rate and is hiking up with every passing day since karzai came to power in 2004. This has raised eyebrows among the world’s super powers and the U.S president has voiced his concern on the rampant corruption and said it should be curtailed before the time destined for the Americans troops to pull out of Afghan soil. Covering the trail of the corruption in Afghanistan is mission impossible, but it should be possible to reduce it from the current, off-the-charts levels to more socially acceptable norms. In fact, this is the most urgent priority for NATO forces. Because of the unwavering support given by the U.S government through the CIA paying off rogues thus lubricating their mutual gain, a noteworthy one is Mohammed Zia salehi, the aide to president karzai who has been charged with corruption, and the president half brother  Ahmed wali karzai  suspected  to be a figurehead in the booming opium trade.  The list endless.

 A more shocking incident and a daily happening is giving bribe to accomplish anything in Afghanistan; getting a driving license unexamined  is barely $1800 and getting  someone convicted of drug trafficking  out of jail is $ 60,000. Karzai’s direct involvement in the myriad corruption came to light when he shamelessly   released mohammed zia who was put behind bars. Just how extreme corruption has become in Afghanistan can be seen in a new study released by the United Nations. According to the paper, 59 percent of Afghan citizens point to corruption as the greatest problem facing the country. Yet another conspicuous avenue of corruption is in the police force where 60 to 80 percent in the eastern regions are ghost workers as a third of the 3,300 police officers only existed. The salaries of 2,100 “ghost officers” go directly into the pockets of politicians and senior police figures, a mundane practice in Afghanistan.

Financial turmoil

 

Making the headlines and begging the question is what made Kabul bank run out of cash?

Kabul Bank, one of the biggest private financial institutions that sprang up after the fall of the Taliban, stands at the very center of Afghanistan’s political and economic elite and serves almost 250,000 civil servant including the Afghanistan forces that America want to use as a bulwark in its effort to combat against al-Qaida. Things are not working well for Obama’s policy makers and were sent back to the drawing table but it may not help since when can change the monkey’s but not the forest. The business malpractices resulted from the intertwining of politics with the economy reducing a break through to scrutinize the bank transaction till late and president karzai’s claims that the crisis have been created by western medias and is baseless,  don’t ring a bell in fool’s head.

 Some of the imminent instances are:

·         The bank helped finance President Karzai’s re-election campaign last year, giving him as much as $14 million. This could explain why they were  given the contract  to administer much of the government’s payroll, which Mr. Frozi,  one of the two largest shareholders of the bank, described as one of the bank’s most lucrative fields of business

·          Haseen Fahim, the brother of the Afghan first vice president and a prominent businessman,  was lent as much as $100 million, officials say

·         the bank’s investments had lost money, but Mr frozi said that none of them were irrecoverable. The biggest mistake, he said, was the decision by his partner, Mr. Farnood, one of the biggest shareholders in the bank, to buy $160 million worth of villas and office buildings in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, at the height of the real estate bubble in 2007.

All these have built up with time and caused turmoil for the bank and loss of trust from the afghan depositors who have started, in large groups, to withdraw their monies in lump sums. This has given panic to the shareholders that the bank may fail, engaging them into intensive marketing to win back the people’s trust.

The best strategy to curb corruption is diagnosing before jumping into the therapy and a clear way of doing it is complete restructuring of president karazai’s government ,reducing the influence of external  policies ,eradicating the opium trade controlled by the political figures and setting up a new transparent judicial system that could enforce the law  unfettered.