Corruption  in  Afghanistan

Several factors don’t go very well for President Karzai Afghan government's tenuous hold on power. His government is increasingly unpopular throughout the country, despite his attempts to build support with various giveaway programs, such as free seed distribution. President Karzai has come to the realization that corruption is slowly destroying his country.

The problem he is facing is that Afghanistan is widely seen by its own people as being corrupt and them having accepted the fact that the very tribal warlords who pillaged the country in the lawless years preceding the Taliban are ravaging parts of Afghanistan which has almost become impotent in the face of rising their terrorist violence.

Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world that has been brought about by the last few decades of war that has seriously disrupted its mainly agricultural economy. To make matters worse, rural Afghans are extremely conservative and generally resistant to new ideas from the outside. The resistance seems to come from a combination of limited education, decades of isolation from modern advances, the necessity for extreme self-reliance to survive protracted periods of conflict, and the distrust, suspicion and presumption of corruption that permeates society after so many years of conflict.

The illicit opium trade however is the one economic activity that not only survived, but has flourished both during and after the war. Now it accounts for more than half of GDP and is said to involve corrupt government officials at every level. Tribal warlords actually control the poppy-growing areas, using the proceeds to fund their militias and arms purchases.

Corruption and collusion between government and business is believed to be rampant throughout the country. Business is conducted based on personal, familial, ethnic and historical relationships.  Unfortunately for the Afghans, their businesses must also negotiate a maze of bribes, taxes and murky government requirements that raises the risks and costs of doing business. Those businesses who have the right connections are able to sidestep many of these costs and risks.  They are also more successful in getting access to land and capital—two critical constraints in the operating of a business in Afghanistan. However, for small businesses and potential new investors or entrepreneurs who are without political influence, there are significant and sometimes insurmountable barriers to operating their businesses. The end result is that there are a relatively small group of businessmen who dominate the various kinds of businesses in which they are involved, since they have access to capital and political influence that small and medium-sized businesses do not.

Some experts assert that the Afghan market and economy are actually highly regulated by informal social norms that restrict competition and participation and ultimately result in a consolidation of market benefits in the hands of the wealthy and powerful Afghans. According to some experts, the major traders in today's market are the same ones who emerged in the 1970s and operated under the mujahedeen and the Taliban who were often based in Pakistan. Most deal in many commodities within their region of operation, e.g. carpets, dried fruits and nuts, televisions and fertilizers - depending on price and demand such as allowing an exporter of carpets to import televisions to get his money back into the country.

It has been observed by experts that many of the traders operating today originally obtained their capital base through illicit activities, even though they are now dealing mainly in licit commodities. Whatever they are involved with now, they must maintain good relationships with those involved in the illicit economy because they are often the ones who control the supply routes and transport systems.

The judicial branch is quite weak and regarded as corrupt. Property rights are a major constraint on business expansion. Land ownership is required as collateral for bank loans, and many people do not have title to the land they have occupied for generations. Other land has been appropriated by the military, police or government. 

Popular perception is that property rights are for sale by the government to insiders with influence. Thus acquiring land or the rights to use land for business purposes is regarded as a bureaucratic ordeal fraught with many risks such as the government might grant title to land but then re-appropriate it after investments have been made. I don’t know for sure if this is actually a prevalent practice or not but certainly the perception by the people in Afghanistan is that it is a strong hindrance to new investments.

The war criminals of the post-Soviet period have gone unpunished; indeed, many of the worst offenders are now members of the current local, provincial or national administrations. This has angered the population, sowing mistrust and bitter disillusionment that yet another corrupt, predatory regime has replaced the last.

The Afghan National Police is part of the problem; ill trained and badly paid, they are notorious for preying on the citizens they are supposed to protect. Security is a problem throughout the country, and getting worse in the east and southeast. Insurgents attack the population, government and international peacekeeping forces. The police are widely seen as incompetent and corrupt, allowing criminal behavior to increase and perpetrating a fair amount of it themselves. Police, like bandits, are said to stop trucks from hauling produce to market and order them to pay so-called taxes and or bribes before they can continue hauling the produce.

Several factors don’t go well for President Karzai government's tenuous hold on power. His government is increasingly unpopular throughout the country, despite his attempts to build support with various giveaway programs, such as free seed distribution. President Karzai has come to the realization that corruption is slowly destroying his country.

The problem he is facing is that Afghanistan is widely seen by its own people as being corrupt and them having accepted the fact that the very tribal warlords who pillaged the country in the lawless years preceding the Taliban are ravaging parts of Afghanistan which has almost become impotent in the face of rising their terrorist violence.

Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world that has been brought about by the last few decades of war that has seriously disrupted its mainly agricultural economy. To make matters worse, rural Afghans are extremely conservative and generally resistant to new ideas from the outside. The resistance seems to come from a combination of limited education, decades of isolation from modern advances, the necessity for extreme self-reliance to survive protracted periods of conflict, and the distrust, suspicion and presumption of corruption that permeates society after so many years of conflict.

The illicit opium trade however is the one economic activity that not only survived, but has flourished both during and after the war. Now it accounts for more than half of GDP and is said to involve corrupt government officials at every level. Tribal warlords actually control the poppy-growing areas, using the proceeds to fund their militias and arms purchases.

Corruption and collusion between government and business is believed to be rampant throughout the country. Business is conducted based on personal, familial, ethnic and historical relationships.  Unfortunately for the Afghans, their businesses must also negotiate a maze of bribes, taxes and murky government requirements that raises the risks and costs of doing business. Those businesses who have the right connections are able to sidestep many of these costs and risks.  They are also more successful in getting access to land and capital—two critical constraints in the operating of a business in Afghanistan. However, for small businesses and potential new investors or entrepreneurs who are without political influence, there are significant and sometimes insurmountable barriers to operating their businesses. The end result is that there are a relatively small group of businessmen who dominate the various kinds of businesses in which they are involved, since they have access to capital and political influence that small and medium-sized businesses do not.

Some experts assert that the Afghan market and economy are actually highly regulated by informal social norms that restrict competition and participation and ultimately result in a consolidation of market benefits in the hands of the wealthy and powerful Afghans. According to some experts, the major traders in today's market are the same ones who emerged in the 1970s and operated under the mujahedeen and the Taliban who were often based in Pakistan. Most deal in many commodities within their region of operation, e.g. carpets, dried fruits and nuts, televisions and fertilizers - depending on price and demand such as allowing an exporter of carpets to import televisions to get his money back into the country.

It has been observed by experts that many of the traders operating today originally obtained their capital base through illicit activities, even though they are now dealing mainly in licit commodities. Whatever they are involved with now, they must maintain good relationships with those involved in the illicit economy because they are often the ones who control the supply routes and transport systems.

The judicial branch is quite weak and regarded as corrupt. Property rights are a major constraint on business expansion. Land ownership is required as collateral for bank loans, and many people do not have title to the land they have occupied for generations. Other land has been appropriated by the military, police or government. 

Popular perception is that property rights are for sale by the government to insiders with influence. Thus acquiring land or the rights to use land for business purposes is regarded as a bureaucratic ordeal fraught with many risks such as the government might grant title to land but then re-appropriate it after investments have been made. I don’t know for sure if this is actually a prevalent practice or not but certainly the perception by the people in Afghanistan is that it is a strong hindrance to new investments.

The war criminals of the post-Soviet period have gone unpunished; indeed, many of the worst offenders are now members of the current local, provincial or national administrations. This has angered the population, sowing mistrust and bitter disillusionment that yet another corrupt, predatory regime has replaced the last.

The Afghan National Police (ANP) is the primary national police force in Afghanistan. It serves as a single law enforcement agency all across the entire country.  The efforts of many honest and effective Afghan police should not be ignored, and one cannot overstate the bravery of those who choose policing in an environment of acute and ever-present danger. Nevertheless, the ANP as a police force is riddled with problems beginning with illiteracy, levels of which are currently estimated at 65 percent of the male population. This fundamental problem restricts the quality of recruits, the effectiveness of police training, and even their ability to write reports and record critical information.

It is little wonder, then, that the ANP is regularly deemed ineffective, a problem exacerbated by its members’ role as quasi-soldiers rather than civilian police officers. It also has the immense challenge of switching very little notice beforehand between policing duties and supporting full-scale military operations. Conversely, far too much police time is wasted on basin crime fighting duties such as road construction and maintenance. This may be why the public complains that the police are lazy and remiss in their duties, with calls to the emergency 119 number often going unanswered. This conduct is undoubtedly compounded by many of them using narcotics use. It has been estimated that 60 percent of the ANP in Helmand, Afghanistan are using illicit drugs.

More serious than charges of unprofessionalism, these police officers are constantly saddled with accusations that they habitually abuse their power such as using torture as a means of evidence collection and stealing from the criminals during home searches. Despite government efforts to tackle corruption in this police force—the force is teeming with graft.

 On the northern edge of Kabul, down a road riddled with huge potholes, is a secure site that bears all the marks of a prison with its high stone walls topped with concertina wire, police officers barking into walkie-talkies, forsaken visitors pacing the compound's edge, waiting for a sign of hope.

Behind these walls are thousands of cars, trucks, vans, motorcycles and even bicycles, lined up in vehicular purgatory after falling afoul of the Kabul traffic police which is part of the ANP. Things that have landed cars behind those walls are such minor offences as illegal left turns, parking violations, involvement in fender-benders and, perhaps most egregious, failure to pay a bribe to the police officer who seized the vehicle. .

One man waited two months to get his van back after it was impounded for an expired international permit. It propelled him on an exhausting odyssey through no fewer than six different government agencies without success.  The irony is that he didn’t need it the permit.

Some Kabul residents describe their efforts taking many months and much money to free their vehicles, only to win back a chassis long since stripped down for its parts. Keenly aware of the horror stories, most people in Kabul go to great lengths to avoid any interaction at all with the traffic police in that city.

For their part, police officers who are truly the most ubiquitous faces of government for everyday Afghans,  insist they are simply doing their job. General Asadullah Khan, the chief of traffic police in Kabul asked this rhetorical question, “If someone makes a wrong turn, what should we do, give them a basket of flowers? Those who break the law typically complain about the police.” Of course they complain about the police especially those who insist on being bribed.

On the streets of Kabul, pessimism prevails. When it comes to accidents, the prudent driver is most likely to try, if at all possible, to settle the dispute on the spot, well before the police officers arrive. The city's complicated traffic circles, ever present potholes and pedestrian overflow have created a knot of smog and frustration. International institutions have attempted to assist the city with traffic management, but progress is hard to find.

The police force's main strategy to thin the glut of vehicles has been to crack down on drivers without licenses, no longer simply fining them, but sending them to jail for up to six months. Cars without proper registration are confiscated and impounded and I have to admit, quite rightly. The problem is trying to get the proper registration.

Police bribes determine everything from recruitment to assignments and promotion prospects. Payoffs are extracted not only from criminals, drug runners and the Taliban, but also from the general public such as shopkeepers, and even the victims of crime whom the ANP are meant to be protecting.

Corruption is such a lucrative growth industry on Afghanistan’s highways that reports suggest police posts along major transport routes such as Balu Beluk can be sold for $200,000. 

It is small wonder that widespread sentiment in Afghanistan views the ANP as thieves wearing police uniforms. In some instances this is literally the case. Here is an example. A doctor from Ghazni told of an incident on the Ghazni Highway during which a bus was robbed by men dressed as Taliban. Subsequently it was discovered that the so-called Taliban were actually the entire police force of that area. Such corruption is detrimental to the reputation not only of the police, but of the central government itself more broadly, as the police are one of the most public faces of the state.

There is however expectations of long-term institutional change that is a fundamental requirement of both government and police reform. At a basic level this includes anti-corruption measures, accountability mechanisms and severe consequences to those who are corrupt,  just to name a few. What may very well reduce much of the corruption are the increasing of basic wages that are above the current ones that are best described as a minor step above poverty.