Tackling Corruption and Aid Management in Afghanistan. January Sayed Maisam Wahidi 1

Transcription

1 Tackling Corruption and Aid Management in Afghanistan January 2011 Sayed Maisam Wahidi 1 At the heart of the Transition by 2014 debate, by when Afghans are supposed to take over the complete responsibility of defending their country, there lies a greater cause of concern or dilemma regarding the prevalent corruption in Afghanistan. And also, how this corruption is negating the various gains made by the Afghan governments in the field of security and stability. More than 3 decades of conflict in Afghanistan has created a non-functional and passive bureaucratic structure that requires long term efforts to be rejuvenated and to eventually operate efficiently. Corruption itself shrivels the effectiveness of the government and creates a distance between itself and the very people it is supposed to serve. The Afghan Government has been trying desperately to curb this growing menace of corruption and the first serious steps in that regard were the establishment of High Office of Oversight and Anti-Corruption in 2008 and issuing various Presidential decrees that ordered transparency, accountability and rule of law. Nevertheless, there have been always allegations against the Afghan government, especially from its donors, that existence of wide spread corruption within the Afghan government structure constitute a serious threat for Afghanistan s state-institutions and development efforts. Rampant corruption was one of the main reasons why donors had to spend their development aid through international organizations and NGOs. However, experiences from the last nine years reveal that comprehensive and inclusive development can be carried out only through Afghan 1 Sayed Maisam Wahidi is a research analyst at the Centre for Conflict & Peace Studies, Kabul, Afghanistan.

2 ownership of the development process. And this in turn requires capacity building of the Afghan government so that it can deliver good governance to its people. All these factors culminated into a significant shift in donors policy when at the International Conference on Afghanistan held at Kabul in July 2010, the donor countries promised to spend 50% of their development aid through the Afghan government channel. The Afghan government, on its part, also agreed to have a joint monitoring and evaluation board (JMEB), which shall meet every four months to assess Afghan government s performance and international assistance to Afghanistan. This conference itself was a tremendous achievement for the Afghan government to get more ownership and play as a partner with its international friends. 2 One of the greatest drawbacks of the Afghanistan development strategy for the last 9 years was that it lacked any mechanism, both within the Afghan government and also with its international donors, to effectively monitor the development spending. Therefore, establishing an oversight mechanism to monitor development funds in Afghanistan is essential. This mechanism enhance transparency and accountability among donor countries and also give a better understanding of beneficiaries of development funds for making a better Afghanistan. Corruption and Needs for Oversight: It is important to note that, in Afghanistan, corruption takes place at different levels within the donor countries, their contractors and of course, inside the Afghan government and these not only include misspending of foreign aid, but also its mismanagement. Afghan government itself has enormous problems and barriers towards controlling corruption. First, security situation is the most important barrier for the Afghan government to administrate and establish efficient subnational institutions, which in turn is depriving public access to governance. Second, lack of rule of law enforcement; Afghanistan has plenty of anti-corruption laws, starting right from the constitution, to various Presidential decrees to the anti-corruption convention that Afghanistan signed and ratified in 2007; but when it comes to enforcing these laws, the Afghan government seems completely incapable. Third, penetration of government institutions by criminal networks, whose interests get served through a corrupt and weak government and who, thus, leave no stone unturned to resist any type of anti-corruption move. 2 MFA. International Conference of Kabul. 20 th July,

3 Recently, President Karzai had issued a decree about formation of a committee comprising of national and international members (3 Afghans and 3 international experts) to supervise and control funds spent in the country. This committee is in charge of monitoring and overseeing anti-corruption policy and strategy in the national level and also to oversee spending of funds provided by the donor countries. Also, the committee is responsible for giving report to President Karzai every six months. There is a question about why President Karzai established this committee to monitor development funds and aid distribution in Afghanistan. To answer this question, it is necessary to identify the various channels through which development funds are being spent in Afghanistan. Three quarters of the U.S. development assistance to Afghanistan are spent through international contractors, who in turn outsource it to various sub-contractors. Repeated sub-contracting of the same project causes siphoning-off of development aid as profit for various sub-contractors. 3 This means that by the time the money gets to the last contractor, who really does the physical work on the ground, there is not much money left to finish the project. The case of a small village in a remote part of Bamiyan province, in Afghanistan s central highlands, serves as a good example. In 2002, $150 million could have transformed the lives of the inhabitants of villages like this one. The money was received by an agency in Geneva, who took 20 percent and subcontracted the job to another agency in Washington DC, who also took 20 per cent. Again, it was subcontracted and another 20 per cent was taken; and this happened again when the money arrived in Kabul. By this time, there was very little money left; but enough for someone to buy wood in Western Iran and have it shipped by a shipping cartel owned by a provincial governor at five times the cost of regular transportation. Eventually some wooden beams reached to the villages. A young man explained: the beams were too large and heavy for the mud walls that we can build. So all we could do was chopping them up and use them for firewood. 4 Unfortunately, this example is not an isolated case, but rather a common practice. Too often, money for development projects is burned by the time it gets to the site of construction. President Karzai has been criticizing donors for not having a better understanding of how the 3 Qiamuddin Amiri. Corruption and Social Trust in Afghanistan. The Fletcher School Online Journal for issues related to Southwest Asia and Islamic Civilization. Spring, %20Afghanistan.pdf 4 Ibid.

4 foreign aid should be spent in Afghanistan. Hopefully this newly formed Monitoring and Oversight Committee will be able to identify the various pitfalls of the earlier development strategy and thusly, convince donor countries to deliver development funds in more a appropriate and effective way. However, there should be some enforcement mechanisms for those contractors that misspend or abuse the funds in inappropriate programs that do not benefit the people of Afghanistan. A vast amount of aid money is also absorbed by high salaries, with generous allowances, and other costs of expatriates working for consulting firms and contractors many of whom costs $250,000 $500,000 a year; and with the recent deterioration in security such costs are actually on the rise. 5 Aid policy and Management in Afghanistan International actors and donor countries have their specific weakness in terms of aid distribution that consequently contributes towards facilitating corruption in Afghanistan, utmost among which is the lack of transparency and accountability among donor countries. Although, those donor countries who are the member of Development Assistance Committee (DAC) or Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have to publicize their assistance; these statistics do not contain those funds that are meant for security related issues. Nevertheless, there are some non DAC/OECD donor countries which have no mechanism to monitor the utilisation of their respective aid to Afghanistan. International assistance to Afghanistan since 2001 has come from many sources but the issue of aid effectiveness has always been critical and it has influenced the effectiveness of aid at improving governance outcomes. The most controversial part of this criticism is the mechanisms international assistance delivery to the Afghan government. Some of these assistances come as tied aid 6 that donors have their specific conditions and Afghan government is not able to initiate and take any actions to enhance the capacities and performance of government. According to the UNDP report regarding to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) summary about 5 Matt Waldman. Aid Effectiveness in Afghanistan. AREU. March In this type of aid the giving (or donor) country also benefits economically from the aid. This happens as the receiving country has to buy goods and services from the donor country to get the aid in the first place.

5 Afghanistan, tied aid is 25% less effective than untied aid in Afghanistan. In addition, tied aid undermines government authority and does not build government capacity. 7 When it comes to aid management, international donors have also failed miserably in Afghanistan. For a country which has been receiving aid since the fall of the Taliban, the concept of aid management has been missing all along from the policy of most of the donors involved in Afghanistan. Lack of harmonization among donors in contributing aid and miscommunication with the Afghan government are two main problems in aid management. JMEB can play a key role to solve lack of harmonization among donors and build linkage between donors and government to manage financial funds based on Afghan priorities as determined through Afghan perspective. Conclusion and Recommendations: Enhancing Afghan capacities and spending through Afghans to build their countries is more beneficial for both, donors and Afghans. Training qualified Afghans and hiring them instead of international workers reserve more money for development projects and build capacitates for Afghans. It is understandable that security has been getting more attentions; however, development and strengthening of state-institutions should also be considered as high priority objectives. As far as tackling of corruption is concerned, it has to be done by the Afghans themselves. But the donors should cooperate with the Afghan government, create opportunities and build sophisticated policy based on the reality in Afghanistan to deal with corruption in the sub national and national levels. Donor countries, especially the U.S. and some other major donors, should support Afghan government to build sufficient capacities for spending funds through government channels. Fighting corruption should be considered as a long term plan for the Afghan government and it requires to be done from all levels within the government system. 7 UNDP Afghanistan. Develop A Global Partnership For Development. Copyright 2011