Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Friday, March 29th, 2024

ANP, Home Ministry Must Join Graft Register: AHOOA

ANP, Home Ministry Must Join Graft  Register: AHOOA

KABUL - Top Afghan National Police (ANP) and officials working for the powerful interior ministry will have to declare property portfolios and assets, including cash, in the latest drive to tackle endemic graft pervading the country.

Police and ministry bureaucrats would join around 2,500 government workers, including ministers, deputy ministers and departmental chiefs, who have so far declared holdings, the government's anti-corruption watchdog said on Tuesday.

"I hope there comes a day when we can ask 'where did you buy all these properties, when you had no food to eat ten years ago?'," Azizullah Ludin, director general of the Afghan High Office of Oversight and Anti-Corruption (AHOOA) told reporters.

The register is part of a compulsory scheme aimed at tackling government corruption, a massive barrier to economic growth in Afghanistan. Ludin is an appointee of President Hamid Karzai.

Once assets are registered, Ludin's oversight office can investigate official declarations and, if it finds anything suspicious, pass evidence to the Attorney General's office for further probes or prosecution.

Since the scheme was launched last year, at least 15 officials have been scrutinized by the Attorney General's office. Results of those investigations will be made public soon, an oversight official said.

Kabul has over recent years been enjoying a property boom fuelled by the small section of wealthy Afghans with international jobs and construction contracts.

In the past, Afghan officials have bought property and registered it in the names of family members. Under the oversight office's scheme, property belonging to officials' wives and children must be registered, but assets of other relatives are exempt.

Corruption is common at all levels of Afghan society. In December, a survey by Berlin-based graft watchdog Transparency International rated Afghanistan one of the world's most corrupt countries, ranked equally with Myanmar, and only slightly cleaner than North Korea and Somalia. (Reuters)