An Afghanistan where insecurity, corruption, poppy cultivation and other similar and serious social, political and economic issues exist is not the Afghanistan that its people have ever desired for.Here, almost every government authority and entityportrays to be sincere and talk of equality, merit, transparency in their activities and services to the public and country. They talk of sincerity, punctuality, hardworking and commitment to the nation. But the ground reality is that there is a difference of cheese and chalk between how they talk and how they walk.
A recent example is involvement of high officials of IEC in ballot stuffing which has led to a grave political crisis in the country. They have done this under the very nose of government. Despite being proved as guilty, the responsible official has already escaped the country.Corruption, nepotism, graft, bribery and embezzlement are all various forms, shapes and names of a single evil that have grasped almost all sectors in Afghanistan.
It is simply the greatest injustice to the rights of people of Afghanistan that billions of dollars of international aids poured for the development and reconstruction of the country are just allowed to go futile and merely fill the pockets of certain groups of people including land and drug mafias, crooked government officials and even insurgents. Only those people know the real meaning of corruption that live an environment where they observe, hear and unwantedly get involved in it. Such an environment does prevail in Afghanistan and its people are those who pay millions of dollars as bribes every year to access services what should be provided to them without any trouble or spending their money illegally.
Those who are involved in embezzlement of billions of dollars roam freely inside and outside Afghanistan as their affiliation with certain strong political figures turns out to be heavier than Afghan laws.This is only the common people who fall in trap and big fishes involved in huge cases of corruption remain unbound of any law and any regulation.
High Office of Oversight and Anti-corruption, Anti-corruption Unit of Attorney General’s Office, concerned unit of National Directorate of Security and specific anti-corruption sections in certain government entities are tasked to fight and prevent corruption, bribery, embezzlement, nepotism and other related crimes.But they have all proved to be toothless. In last year’s index of Transparency International, Afghanistan, like many other years, fell in the list of the most corrupt countries of the world but who cares?Whilein other countries such reports shake government, there has been no effect on the Afghan government. It has turned blind eye to the evil of corruption despite foreign and domestic pressures.
Seeing the fragility of security, political and economic condition, one can say that huge of amounts international funds poured in Afghanistan have all gone futile leaving negligible positive impacts on the living condition of the people of this country.