When it comes to appointment of provincial/district mayors and governors and judicial authorities, selection of ministers and senators or decision on any other important national issue, the decision is made in a very centralized manner by the current administration. In Afghanistan the government system continues to remain greatly centralized. Major authorities are concentrated to Presidential Palace.
Nepotism is high. Only people with close ties to high government authorities can secure important positions in the government. Such people can become mayors, governors, senators, ministers, deputy ministers and occupy any other high position in the government.
Such trends have immensely contributed to the high level of corruption and nepotism in government entities. The problem of corruption has always remained one of the top agendas of the conferences held on Afghanistan in the recent years. Corruption has hampered Afghanistan’s social, economic and political development in the last eleven years – an era that was deemed as a ‘golden opportunity’ for the people of Afghanistan to develop and reconstruct their country.
To help Afghanistan come out of the chaos it is facing, there has always been a very high demand for reforms in the government. The Afghan government needs to make reforms and fulfill its responsibilities in order to gain international political and economic support. In the Tokyo Conference held last year, the world pledged $16 billion of aid for Afghanistan. Nonetheless, Afghanistan would only able to receive those funds if its government takes effective measures to tackle the rampant corruption and bring the needed reforms.
Current administration, despite knowing everything, turns a deaf ear to valid demands of the people of Afghanistan and the international community. The only step Mr. Karzai has taken so far to clean his government of corruption came on 26 July, 2012. In a decree, Mr. Karzai ordered certain key ministries and other government bodies to take specific measures for elimination of corruption and report within a fixed deadline (in months) to the presidential palace. Nevertheless, after passage of more than eight months condition has rather worsened.
At the crucial juncture where Afghanistan is standing today, bringing some key reforms in the government and fighting corruption are crucial for the future of stability of Afghanistan. But the Afghan government seems to lack any political will to bring reforms or fight corruption and that is quite regretful.