KABUL – Following the announcement of the National Anti-Corruption Strategy, the High Office of Oversight and Anti-Corruption (HOOAC) said an independent department should be established to implement the new anti-corruption strategy.
HOOAC head Ghulam Hussain Fakhri said on Monday that establishing an independent anti-corruption body is the best option to fight corruption and insisted that the body should be free of any interference and its chairman should be elected.
Based on the new anti-corruption strategy, the High Office of Oversight and Anti-Corruption will be dissolved.
The High Office of Oversight and Anti-Corruption officials said they have investigated 600 corruption cases in the last 10 years and 400 employees work for the office.
“An office should be established that in addition to having financial and structural authorities, should not be subjected to short-term and seasonal policies and should take actions independently,” said Fakhri.
One of the main concerns of the institutions fighting corruption is that there is not an independent office to fight the phenomena, to implement the new anti-corruption strategy and to hold accountable corrupt people, especially those involved in major cases.
Integrity Watch Afghanistan (IWA) meanwhile said the new strategy is not a comprehensive strategy. 
“The anti-corruption strategy lacks an implementation plan and that is not an effective strategy,” IWA CEO Sayed Ikram Afzali said.
In reaction to these remarks, the National Unity Government (NUG) said the strategy is comprehensive and an effective option for tackling corrupt people and eradicating corruption.
“The main focus of the strategy is on the ministries that have the most revenues and expenditures and that all the offices should put into practice their operational plans based on the strategy framework,” the president’s deputy spokesman Shah Hussain Murtazavi said.
A number of parliament members meanwhile said the only way to fight corruption is to stop the culture of impunity and to investigate major cases and to everyone guilty of corruption accountable.  
“Now the situation is worse even those who are involved in corruption do not worry, because they have supporters,” MP Sayed Ali Kazimi said.
Transparency in policies, good leadership, good financial and resources management, transparency in recruitment processes and establishing a special court to address land grabbing cases are the main principles of the new anti-corruption strategy. (Tolonews)