Sunday Times 2
Afghan civil servants took £2.5bn in bribes in one year
View(s):Afghan civil servants and officials pocketed an astonishing £2.5billion in bribes last year, U.N. figures have revealed.
The scale of fraud came despite repeated promises by President Hamid Karzai to clean up his government. Half the population pay bribes, claims the U.N. It is a 40 per cent jump on the previous figure of 2009.
Corruption concern: Afghan civil servants and officials pocketed £2.5bn in bribes last year despite promises by President Hamid Karzai (pictured with David Cameron) to clean up his government
The West has long expressed concern about the problem of corruption in Afghanistan because it reduces confidence in the Western-backed government.
Karzai ordered his ministries, prosecutors and judiciary to fight bribery, nepotism and cronyism with a series of measures in July.
But the survey by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime and Afghanistan’s anti-corruption unit showed no improvement in curbing the common practice of paying bribes for public services in the country.
U.N. envoy Jean-Luc Lemahieu said: ‘Corruption means you don’t get the best in the public sector, you get the best connected or those with the higher income.’
That £2.5 billion was double the revenue collected by the government to provide services, said Mr Lemahieu.
The Afghan High Office of Oversight and Anti-Corruption pledged to continue its efforts in fighting the problem, saying the report was an important step toward locating priority areas.
Mohammad Rafi Amini, the head of policy and planning for the agency, said: ‘The fight against corruption by the Afghan government and the people of Afghanistan will continue.’
One particularly troubling trend singled out by the U.N. was the emergence of education as one of the most vulnerable sectors. The number of Afghans bribing a teacher jumped from 16 per cent in 2009 to 51 per cent in 2012, according to the survey.
Offers were often received for improving exam results and providing information about the contents of the tests in exchange for bribes, raising concerns about the role of the practice in shaping the behavior and expectations of Afghanistan’s youths, the agency said.
The survey also found that more of the public finds bribery acceptable. Of the adults interviewed last year, 68 per cent said it was OK for a civil servant to supplement a low salary by accepting small bribes, compared with 42 per cent in 2009.
A roughly equivalent number said it was sometimes acceptable for a civil servant to be recruited on the basis of family ties and acquaintances.
After decades of war, Afghanistan has long been plagued by corruption. The country also was ranked at the bottom of Transparency International’s corruption index in 2012, along with North Korea and Somalia. The index scores countries based on perceived levels of public sector corruption.
Britain has been part of the Western forces active in Afghanistan since October 2001. Four hundred and forty British soldiers have been killed in that time.
© Daily Mail, London
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