Nepotism continues to remain a major challenge for Afghanistan. The condition is so that only people with close ties to high government authorities can secure important positions in the government. For a common Afghan finding job has turned extremely difficult despite of having adequate education and skills. Nonetheless, people with strong affiliation with high government authorities can become mayors, governors, senators, ministers, deputy ministers and occupy any other high position in the government without having any strong educational or working background.

Meanwhile, appointment of provincial/district mayors and governors and judicial authorities, selection of ministers and senators all take place on the basis of relations, not on the basis of merit or election. In Afghanistan the government system continues to remain greatly centralized. Major authorities are concentrated to presidential palace only. 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 decade – an era that was deemed as ‘golden’ for the people of Afghanistan to develop and reconstruct their country. 

Karzai 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 more than a year condition has rather worsened.

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 properly in order to gain international political and economic support in the long run.

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.