One of the most important and difficult tasks of new government is the fight against corruption. Both the president and the Chief Executive of country vowed in their election campaigns and then after their oath-taking to put the fight against corruption in their priority list. Recent acts of President Ahmadzai to personally take action against corruption in a number of government organs is really satisfactory and have given hope to the citizens that this government is not going to be like the previous government when corruption flourished and it was accepted as norm of the day. The order of the president to re-open the case of Kabul Bank scandal and his order to the Chief Municipal Officer of Kabul city to collect the money from the owners of Sherpoor plots are a few examples that show the seriousness of government in this regard.
In the same way, Chief Executive, Dr. Abdullah has also expressed his firm pledge to fight corruption which shows that both the heads of state are united in fighting this menace which has inflicted so many harms to the country.
Corruption harmed the country and citizens from so many perspectives. The large amount of money that flew into the country for the development works was not properly spent and most of this money ended in the pockets of a few. It is the reason why, the conditions of a common person did not change much and he is still occupied with large number of problems.
In the same way, the country was defamed internationally due to corruption as we have been winning any of the first three positions in the most corrupt countries of the world. Last year, Afghanistan ranked second among the most corrupt countries of the world which shows the grim situation of corruption in the country.
Due to this fact, we also lost the trust of donor nations and whenever we pledge money for budget or any development project, we are asked to tackle the corruption inside the country and then ask for more funds. This situation is really drastic for a country like Afghanistan that depends mostly for foreign aid to make its budget and meet its necessary expenses.
However, fighting corruption is also not easy. The corruption has been done mostly by those who are so strong that our previous government was not able to take any action against them. The recent case of the introduction of five ministers to the courts for corruption charges is an example. In the same way, ministers, army generals, high-ranking police officers, tribal leaders, members of parliament and high ranking government officials were all involved in corruption. Due to this, corruption has become so common in our country that a non-corrupt person is considered to be a fool who is not much suitable for our corrupt system.
It is a harsh reality that fighting corruption may be very difficult but government will have to take the initiative because if the present government also failed to take any action against it, no future government will be able to fight it and it will be a trend in our lives. Present government is enjoying the firm support of people and its heads also have a good, clean past record. Ignoring all the difficulties and tackling all the resistance, they should start their fight against the corruption and if they had some problems in the beginning, they would definitely be successful in the long run.
The immediate benefit of checking the files of corrupt people would be in form of money collected back from these corrupt people. It is a common practice that many countries of the world offer a bargain to corrupt politicians or officials in return of large sums of money. Our government is in dire need of money to meet its expenses. Such a step would ensure that large sum of money flows into the national treasury which would be then used for development projects. Such an action would also give a signal to all that corruption is not going to be tolerated anymore and its perpetrators will have to face its grave consequences.
In capital city Kabul and other parts of the country, there are large numbers of people who made unbelievable money by corruption. In the same way, the common public is also willing to point out these corrupt people. If government is facing difficulty in finding the corrupt people, common public is willing to help the government in this regard. It is needed that government should make an open complaint cell where common people should be asked to give details of corrupt people they know. The whole mechanism should be made very easy so that people should be able to give information by sending email, sending a mobile message, making a phone call or writing a letter. It must be taken care that the identity of the informer should be kept secret. After a complaint is received, it should be properly investigated by the members of this anti-corruption unit and the perpetrators should be brought into justice.
Our new government is honest to fight corruption so it needs to take immediate actions in this regard and the work can be made very easy if the help of common public is sought.