Corruption in Afghanistan

Bribes must be paid in Afghanistan to secure most public services.[2] A UN study shows that the completion of public services is reliant almost solely on bribes paid and has resulted in a severe hampering of economic growth.[12] Petty bribery has been the leading cause of distress among the average citizens of Afghanistan,[13] although it is generally only the high-level corruption cases that are reported in major media.[14]

Prosecutors, teachers, judges, and customs officials are the most likely public employees to receive bribes. The average bribe to prosecutors and judges is over US$300. Bribes to other officials are somewhat lower. In 85% of cases, bribes are directly or indirectly requested by public officials; in 13% of cases, they are offered spontaneously by citizens. Some officials request bribes through intermediaries.[12] According to the U.N., 50 percent of Afghans paid bribes in 2012; in some parts of the country, the figure was as high as 70 percent. Half of Afghans had bribed teachers, with similar numbers paying bribes to customs officials, judges, and prosecutors. A somewhat smaller number had bribed land registry officials and provincial officers.[5] The bribing of judges declined significantly between 2009 and 2012. The percentage of persons paying bribes to teachers climbed from 16% in 2009 to 51% in 2012. Doctors, nurses, and paramedics account for 15 to 20% of bribes.[12]

In 2013, 43% of Afghans viewed civil servants and bureaucrats as corrupt, while 58% said they paid a bribe to Registry and Permit Services, 44% to Tax Revenue and 40% to Land Services. In 2012, half of Afghans bribed customs officials. The bribing of customs and tax and revenue officers rose between 2009 and 2012.[12] In 52% of Afghan households, at least one member has applied for a public sector job, and 45% paid bribes to help secure the jobs.[6]

While almost 30% of Afghans paid bribes to secure private-sector services in 2012, 50% did so to secure public-sector services. Public-sector bribery is more prevalent in western and northeastern Afghanistan and less in the southern and central regions.[12]

By far the most common motive for bribery is the desire to facilitate or hasten the delivery of a public service (59.4%). Other motives include the desire to reduce the cost of a procedure (10.6%), to avoid paying a fine (13.3%), and to receive improved treatment (6.7%). Most cases, states a 2012 UN report, involve bribes for better or faster services, while other bribes are made to influence court cases and legal decisions, thus undermining the rule of law. It was reported that 24% of bribes offered to the police were for the express purpose of releasing imprisoned suspects or to avoid imprisonment altogether.[12]

According to a UN report, administrative bribery places the greatest economic hardship on regular Afghan citizens and their families.[12]

The chief form of corruption in the education sector involves so-called "ghost teachers" and double-registered teachers. Anything involving paperwork in the educational system requires small bribes.[2]

A SIGAR report stated that senior officials at the Ministry of Education had intentionally falsified data on the number of schools and teachers in the nation in order to over-bill international aid providers. As a result, millions of US taxpayer dollars have been used to pay for nonexistent schools and teachers, and enriching the dishonest education officials in Afghanistan.[15]

A February 2012 article in Gulf Today explored the fact that in many Afghan schools there are many no-show teachers, teachers who know nothing about their subjects, and teachers who cannot even read or write. Only 20% of funds budgeted for teachers' salaries in one province went to actual teachers; the rest went to local security or education officials who receive the "ghost teacher's" salary in their place.[16]

A December 2014 report focused on graft within the customs system. Although many experts identified such graft as a primary cause of the government's shortfall of revenue goals the previous year, it was noted that little had been done thus far to address the problem. Customs agents were identified as the most glaring offenders, with the report noting that they in most circumstances appointed by ministers with the express understanding that financial kickbacks are to be given for the position.[17]

The Washington Post reported in December 2012 that the US had provided the Afghan government with bulk currency counters at airports to help prevent cash smuggling. In response, the Afghan government provided a way for VIPs to bypass the machines.[18]

Outside observers have noted that the Afghan people view what Westerners consider "favoritism" or "nepotism" as the right thing to do, since they believe themselves to be taking care of their extended family. "You take care of your own. Period. It just happens that when you do that with public funds and positions, people tend to get a little persnickety about it. While admitting that they would do the exact same thing."[19]

The Asia Foundation describes the central route of growing corruption in Afghanistan as the strength of patronage politics in the country. While patronage is a centuries-long Afghan tradition, it is now an integral part of the society, and its entanglement with criminal activities is a growing concern. Because of patronage, people without connections have great difficulty rising within the Afghan government. While corrupt officials enjoy impunity, honest officials are often denied access to powerful positions.[2]

According to surveys by both Transparency International and the U.N., Afghans consider the judiciary their society's most corrupt segment.[5]

Judicial corruption is said to be an endemic problem in the country that affects every level of the legal system. "From granting judicial access and selecting the deposition of cases to extorting money from defendants for favorable decisions, corrupt justices are able to line their pockets with hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes." Judges are subject to the influence of warlords, terrorists, and others; most judges are appointed as the result of "under-the-table deals," and are largely unqualified by all legal standards. Interviews carried out in 2013 with people who had lost lawsuits indicated that the winning party had bribed the court. Judges and prosecutors are believed to accept bribes to bar a case from going to court, making evidence and witnesses vanish from court evidence. There is no oversight of courts by other government branches and no transparency in Supreme Court decisions.[6]

In December 2012, a senior judge named Zahoruddin was convicted of seeking to extort bribes from Dewa, a 22-year-old freelance journalist, who had filed for divorce. After she had refused to bribe him, he offered to marry her in exchange for granting the divorce. Dewa secretly recorded the entire conversation, and sent the tape to the Supreme Court. After a case was brought against Zahoruddin, she received a death threat from him. His conviction was described by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty as a rare victory in the struggle against corruption in Afghanistan.[20]

In 2014, a leading opium trafficker, Haji Lal Jan Ishaqzai, was arrested in Afghanistan by the Counter Narcotics Police, but he soon was freed in exchange for bribes. It was almost a week until the Afghan counternarcotics authorities in Kabul was informed that Ishaqzai was freed, reported The New York Times. He fled to Pakistan where he was beyond the scope of Afghan or American law enforcement. Several judicial officials were arrested, and some sources said that the Supreme Court was directly involved in letting Ishaqzai go, but it was unclear who exactly was responsible for his release.[21]

Corruption in Afghanistan's traffic department, according to a February 2013 article in The Washington Post, is among the worst of the nation's fledgling bureaucracies. Vehicle registration requires 27 separate signatures. A new driver's license calls for "about a dozen stamps from ministries, agencies and banks." These requirements have led to the formation of a black market that involves the bribing of public officials in order to expedite traffic documents. "It's corruption in $30 or $40 bites—far from the millions allegedly stolen here every year," stated the Post. However, these bribes have warped the perception Afghans hold on their nation's institutions. The Post quoted an official who earns $10,000 annually on such corruption, who stated that the corrupt system is disadvantageous for everyone, including many of those involved in the scheme. The department's red tape has earned it the reputation as the most exploitive one in the government, stated the Post.[14]

A May 2014 article about corruption at traffic stops, told the story of U.S. Army Col. John Graham, deputy leader of NATO's Regional Command-Capital, who was asked by Lt. Col. Farhad Safi, an "idealistic, young police commander in charge of a 'ring of steel' of traffic checkpoints cordoning central Kabul against car bombers and suicide attacks," to help arrange for security cameras and thus prevent bribery at those checkpoints.[13]

One form of corruption that has come to the fore since 2001 is the confiscation of land. In 2003, slum dwellings in the Sherpoor neighborhood of Kabul were destroyed and replaced by residences for cabinet members. Similar actions have followed. Land has been illegally distributed by the executive to political elites in order to win their allegiance. More than 80% of new land in Kabul was distributed under the auspices of Afghan elites and high officials. Ex-warlords have made money illicitly in a range of fields and then laundered it by purchasing real estate.[2]

Corruption is common in the physical infrastructure sector, and involves criminal patronage networks. The construction business involves hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of bribes that benefit a massive network.[2]

The Afghan National Police (ANP) are considered notoriously corrupt. The Ministry of the Interior has been criticized for "failing to properly account for billions of dollars allocated for police salaries via a U.N.-administered trust fund." Corruption robs police officers of up to half of their salaries, which makes them more likely to solicit bribes. A 2012 Asia Foundation survey found that over half of Afghans who had dealt with an ANP officer during the previous year had been forced to pay a bribe.[5]

Beginning in 2009, policemen in parts of Afghanistan began to be paid through their cell phones, which prevented their superiors from skimming off part of their wages. According to MIT Technology Review, the bribes had been so immense that on their first pay period on the phone system, the police officers believed they had received a pay raise, when in fact they were simply receiving their full pay without any administrative bribes or extortion taking place.[22]

Reuters reported in August 2011 that "an expanding dossier of unresolved police violence and corruption cases ... have alienated Afghans," and that this called into question the feasibility of rebuilding the civic institutions of the war-torn nation.[23]

Fox News reported in October 2014 that Afghan officials may have systematically stolen $300 million from a UNDP trust fund used to pay police officers in Afghanistan and that European Union donors had withheld about $100 million in contributions to the fund owing to concerns about the fund's management. The UNDP itself stated that it was not the agency's responsibility to address this corruption.[24]

Some police officers, according to a 2015 report, have informed the Taliban of impending operations, presumably in exchange for bribes.[6]

The Afghan National Army is considered more professional than the ANP but also experiences a significant misallocation of resources and immense levels of bribery solicitation. In a 2013 Transparency International survey, one-fifth of Afghans said they considered the military corrupt.[5]

The New York Times reported in March 2012 that Afghan defense officials were impeding a probe into whether Afghan Air Force members were trafficking in opium and weapons and that an Afghan officer who had killed eight members of the US military in 2011 may have been involved in trafficking. For example, investigators were only given limited access to military personnel with any evidence to report, and were denied access to areas of the airport where smuggling was still suspected to be underway.[25]

As a result of corruption, according to a 2014 report, the Department of Defense had lost account of over 200,000 weapons allotted to the ANSF and ANP. Those weapons, as well as ammunition, had reportedly been sold by police and security officers to the Taliban.[6]

In early 2015, the oversight committee for Ministry of Defence contracts uncovered a kickback scheme involving payment by the ministry of over $200 million to fuel contractors. After an investigation, the contracts were cancelled and senior ministry officials fired.[15]

In May 2015, Newsweek reported that Taliban insurgents were buying U.S.-supplied weapons from Afghan forces. The Pentagon "lost track of many of the 465,000 light weapons the U.S. supplied to Afghan security forces."[26]

The Afghan government formed the High Office for Oversight and Anti-Corruption (HOOAC). One source notes, however, that "in reality, the Afghans that currently run the country do not want to see the pipeline of money that flows from the donor nations to their Swiss or Dubai bank accounts interrupted. So this 'high office' really is not doing much to fix the corrupt situation in Kabul."

Although the HOOAC purportedly has three basic functions, namely "prevention, investigation and enforcement," it has no legal authority to perform investigations. Individual governmental departments are supposed to refer corruption cases to the Attorney General's Office (AGO) for investigation, whereupon the HOOAC is supposed to engage in follow-up work. One challenge to its work is that "only 9% of Afghan homes own a computer and only one third of citizens understand basic governmental administrative procedures, making reporting bribes exceptionally difficult." The HOOAC "lacks the requisite infrastructure to properly process the current levels of complaints. A study found that it "was greatly understaffed, lacked experienced employees, suffered from in inadequate operational capacity and failed to meet international standards of independence from the rest of government as an oversight institution." Because of the corruption of the judiciary itself, many corruption cases are not properly adjudicated.[6]

Other local initiatives are Management Systems International (MSI) and Integrity Watch Afghanistan (IWA), a civil society organization. Former president Karzai appointed a childhood friend, Izzatullah Wassifif, as head of the Afghan anti-corruption agency. In 2007 it was revealed that he had spent 3½ years in a U.S. prison for drug trafficking. "Almost no one is more corrupt than President Karzai," states one source. "Although he will make passionate speeches about how corruption needs to be eliminated he continues to be the most corrupt official in Afghanistan. In addition, he condemns U.S. efforts to reduce corruption as an attempt to meddle in Afghan sovereign affairs. On the rare occasion that an Afghan official does try to fight corruption he will find himself quickly dismissed."[36]

In a 2010 article in The New York Times, in which he referred to Afghanistan as "Corrupt-istan," Dexter Filkins cited the case of Fazel Ahmad Faqiryar, who had been fired as deputy attorney general for attempting to prosecute senior members of Karzai's cabinet. Faqiryar criticized the Afghan legal system by stating that the laws of the country are meant only for the lower classes. Filkins described Faqiryar's ouster as exemplary of the lawlessness and lack of any rule of law that permeates Karzai's government, and the rest of Afghanistan's regional governments. Filkins quoted Afghan criticism of the US for working with Afghan officials known to be corrupt, and said that US commanders fear "that taking down the biggest Afghan politicians could open a vacuum of authority ... that the Taliban could take advantage of." Filkins also noted that the firing of Faqiryar had made him a respected national icon.[40]

In December 2011, Karzai demanded that the occupying coalition provide evidence against the Afghan Army's former surgeon general, Gen. Ahmad Zia Yaftali, whom it wanted to prosecute. NATO had in fact provided evidence a year earlier that Yaftali had stolen medical drugs from Afghanistan's largest military hospital, which he was in charge of, totaling in the millions of dollars. It was noted that Afghan soldiers regularly died from minor infections at the hospital due to a lack of medicine, and their inability to pay bribes to the hospital's medical staff. Brig. Gen. McMaster, who ran the US inquiry, was outraged at Karzai's move, the Yaftali investigation having been a major part of the anti-corruption effort. "Now it appeared as if an officer who was accused of letting his own soldiers die so he could enrich himself would never be tried."[41]

Both President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, who took office in 2014, "made anticorruption efforts a key component of their presidential campaigns."[5]

In December 2014, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani dismissed the heads of the attorney's office, the oil, power, and customs departments and the director of education in Herat province. Ghani said that all of the officials except the chief attorney would be charged with corruption. These were the first major changes Ghani had made in a local administration since assuming power.[42]

When a scheme by local contractors to overcharge the Afghan government and U.S. taxpayers was revealed in January 2015, President Ghani fired the contractors without hesitation, voided the contract and launched an investigation. This was described as "a total 180-degree turn from the way it was under Karzai."[26]

In December 2014, Transparency International offered six recommendations to combat Afghan corruption. They included: Promote clean leadership in key institutions; Make the judiciary independent; Establish a best practice right to information regime; Establish an independent anti-corruption agency; Make asset declaration mandatory for all those who hold power; and Procurement transparency.[43]

"Until now," wrote Haroun Mir in 2015, "the Afghan government and the donor community have tried hard to curb corruption in the public sector. However, while politicians and public sector officials often benefit from corruption, the main perpetrator is the private sector that bribes them." In Afghanistan, "corruption at its highest level takes place because of collusion between political appointees and contractors from the business sector."[15]

Task Force Shafafiyat (or Task Force Transparency), more officially known as Combined Joint Inter-Agency Task Force – Shafafiyat, was established by General Petreaus to combat corruption.[36]

The Anti-Corruption Coordination Group was set up by the U.S. Embassy to develop strategies for reducing corruption.[36]

In 2010, Petreaus founded Task Force 2010 "to try to follow the money trail in an effort to ensure that money is spent properly. " It later relocated from Afghanistan to a Qatar air base.[36]

The Special Investigator General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) "is supposed to conduct audits of reconstruction projects and attempt to recover any US taxpayer funds." Originally ineffective, owing to "shoddy record keeping and poorly maintained databases," it has since improved in efficiency, becoming "a true 'watchdog'" that provides excellent reports.[36]

The International Contract Corruption Task Force (ICCTF) is an interagency organization formed in 2006 with the help of the FBI to help battle the "immense" level of crime among U.S. contracting officials. Its members include the FBI, DCIS, SIGAR, MPFU, NCIS, and the IG offices of State and USAID.[36]

The Afghanistan Threat Finance Cell (ATFC), founded in 2009, combats illicit financial networks and provides other US agencies with financial expertise and intelligence.[36]

A July 2012 report on NPR stated that while "U.S. officials consider widespread corruption one of the main barriers to a stable Afghanistan," Seth Jones, a former advisor to the U.S. command in Afghanistan, stated that "when it came to specific, concrete, sustained efforts to target and reduce corruption within the Afghan government," U.S. officials did not have the necessary resolve.[44]

In March 2015, Mary Beth Goodman and Trevor Sutton called on the U.S. to help Afghanistan increase accountability and transparency and lower corruption and graft. While eliminating corruption in Afghanistan is no simple task, Goodman and Sutton stated in March 2015 "it could be significantly reduced, and even modest improvements in public accountability will substantially enhance the legitimacy of the new government."[5]

John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, said in 2013 that US government bureaucrats had ordered him to cease from publishing damning audits that noted a myriad of corruption cases in Afghanistan, preferring instead to keep them guarded from the public.[45]

The Washington Times reported in September 2013 that a U.S. government public-health program in Afghanistan might have wasted $190 million owing to a "high risk of waste, fraud and abuse," and that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was still providing "millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars in direct assistance with little assurance" that those funds were being spent properly. The Times cited a SIGAR report stating that "USAID has ignored repeated warnings about waste" at the Afghan Ministry of Public Health.[46]

In May 2014, John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction (SIGAR), told a meeting at the Middle East Institute that corruption was the "big issue" in Afghanistan and that the US wasn't doing enough to combat it. He said commanders in the field had told him "corruption is more serious in Afghanistan than the insurgency" and explained that "the patronage system and the failure to prosecute people guilty of gross fraud and abuse is undermining the Afghan economy and putting future development efforts at risk."[9]

An October 2014 report by SIGAR noted that the US Army was ignoring "multiple calls for it to stop doing business with Afghans who are known to support the country's insurgency." SIGAR noted that U.S. reconstruction projects had "helped Afghans grow large quantities of opium-poppy plants. SIGAR head John F. Sopko said he was "troubled by the fact that our government can and does use classified information to arrest, detain, and even kill individuals linked to the insurgency in Afghanistan, but apparently refuses to use the same classified information to deny those same individuals their right to obtain contracts with the U.S. government." The report stated that "U.S. government contractors tied to the insurgency have even gained access to coalition facilities and bases, despite being made aware of these vulnerabilities by SIGAR." For example, in 2013 "one contractor clearly identified as providing explosives to the Afghan insurgency was permitted access to a Coalition-controlled facility."[47]

Following their return to power, the Taliban have significantly tackled corruption. Afghanistan is placed as 150th among the 180 countries of the corruption watchdog Transparency International's 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index, where the country ranked first is perceived to be the least corrupt and the country ranked 180, the most corrupt. This is a massive upgrade from Afghanistan's former position at 180th in 2011, and 174th in 2021. In 2011, the country ranked next to Somalia, and North Korea. The Taliban have also reportedly reduced bribery and extortion in public service areas.[48]

The Kabul Bank, established in 2004 by Khalilullah Ferozi and Sherkhan Farnood, was Afghanistan's first private bank. From the beginning, it was criticized as resembling a Ponzi scheme. It lent money to the nation's elite, who did not repay the loans.[49] In an editorial The Guardian accused Ferozi of causing the most damage to Afghanistan besides the Taliban.[50]

Ferozi and Farnood curried favor with President Karzai's family, whereupon the Afghan government put Kabul Bank in charge of the payroll accounts for all of the nation's civil servants, soldiers, and police officers. One of Karzai's brothers, Mahmoud Karzai, became the bank's third-biggest shareholder. The bank put $4 million into Karzai's 2009 re-election campaign, and in return got 430,000 government accounts.[50]

According to The Guardian, Ferozi and Farnood drained "the savings of thousands of depositors totalling $579m (£359m) in a binge of insider lending by the bank's politically powerful shareholders. Because there was never any obligation to pay any interest on these 'loans', the total unaccounted sum is $910m. In a country where GDP is just $12bn, that is an extraordinary figure." The scandal destroyed confidence in the public banking system, and dried up many foreign-aid payments.[50]

The amount spent by the government to bail out the bank totaled between 5% and 6% of Afghanistan's entire GDP.[51]

In November 2015, it was reported that Ferozi, who was supposed to be serving a term in Pul-i-Charkhi prison for his role in defrauding the Kabul Bank of nearly $1 billion, had signed a new contract with the Afghan government for a massive real-estate development in Kabul called Smart City. He was now serving his sentence at night, reflecting an apparent unwillingness on the part of the Afghan government to address corruption at the highest level. International donors and the International Monetary Fund had made Ferozi's prosecution a mandatory condition for further aid to Afghanistan.[49]

One Western official stated that the prison arrangement with Ferozi and the government's new business involvement with him sent a message that embezzlement on a grand enough scale will result in no incarceration. Yama Torabi, a member of Afghanistan's anti-corruption committee, said that these developments perpetuated a culture of kleptocracy and signaled that any official can loot the Afghan budget, while anyone can invest with no questions asked.[49]

A 2013 report by the Daily Beast stated that Mahkdoom Raheen, formerly a democracy-supporting professor who became Minister of Information and Culture under Karzai, a close friend, had engaged in massive corruption. After Indian philanthropist Madanjeet Singh donated $1 million to rehabilitate Kabul's Cultural Heritage Center and train art preservationists, Raheen embezzled nearly all of Singh's donation, depositing it in a personal account that was not discovered until after Raheen's 2006 resignation from the ministry after allegations of "corruption, nepotism, mismanagement, and promoting Iranian cultural interests in Afghanistan." Despite the allegations, Karzai named Raheen ambassador to India. Observers criticized the comfort leaders hold for corruption culture within the government. After Karzai's 2009 re-election, Raheen was once again named Minister of Information and Culture. A former senior culture ministry official, Zia Bumia, questioned how grand corruption is by ministers connected to warlords and drug lords when an academic is embezzling funds. In 2013, he was charged with involvement in illegally appropriating at least 59 cultural and historical artifacts but told the Daily Beast that he had been cleared of the charge. He was also accused of helping Ahmad Shah Sultani, a reputed art trafficker, found a Kabul museum that is suspected of being a front for illegally acquired cultural artifacts to traffic on the black market, at the benefit of Sultani and Raheen.[52]

It was reported in August 2012 that Finance Minister Hazarat Omar Zakhilwal, who had been lauded for his integrity, had embezzled over $1 million and deposited it in Canadian bank accounts. Afghanistan's High Office of Oversight and Anti-corruption chief, Dr. Azizullah Ludin, said he would investigate.[53]

In May 2013, the Daily Beast reported on a session of the Afghan Parliament at which Zakhilwal, who was being impeached for corruption, charged several M.P.s with corruption. Haji Zaher Qadeer was accused of smuggling $269 million worth of flour from Pakistan; Haji Hamid Lalai had sought official processing for almost 2000 illegal vehicles; other M.P.s were charged with smuggling oil tankers and alcohol, with pressuring Zakhilwal to hire their relatives as customs officials, and with exercising undue influence on supply contracts. In the end, Zakhilwal kept his position. The story noted that international aid and military organizations encourage corruption by giving contracts to businesses illegally owned by MPs.[54]

In October 2015, Drago Kos, Afghanistan's chief international corruption watchdog, resigned, complaining that the government's corruption efforts were not serious. "With the exception of some sporadic activities, in one year since the new president and the C.E.O. took positions, I could not see any systemic action against endemic corruption in the country," said Kos, a member of the Independent Joint Anti-Corruption Monitoring and Evaluation Committee. Kos stated that there was never any political support at any point in his efforts and cited a lack of will to combat corruption.[49]

On January 30, 2013, The New York Times reported that a move by the US military to blacklist an Afghan airline, Kam Air, because of accusations of drug smuggling had caused diplomatic pressure with a Karzai spokesman, Aimal Faizi, demanding evidence of guilt.[55]