Graft Eats 75% Of Afghan Government Revenues

By Steve Hynd

Via Italian news agency ADNkronos, comes an eye-opening report from the Afghan anti-corruption department:

Anti-corruption officials believe graft is eating up a staggering 75 percent of the Afghan government's revenues, a news conference heard on Wednesday. A senior official in Afghanistan's anti-corruption department, Muhammad Yasin Osmani, said most of the revenues were being wasted due to administrative corruption.

Imports were not being correctly registered in the country's customs offices, sub-standard items were being allowed to reach the market, and permits were being issued to people who are not traders and businessmen, Osmani said.

He also criticised the finance ministry' lack of proper control of purchase permits which allowed more corruption among government officials, decreasing national revenues.

Finance ministry spokesman Aziz Shams admitted government revenues were being squandered but said Osmani had over-dramatised the situation.

Presumably the Finance Ministry is knee deep in all this administrative corruption, so it's unclear why their word should be trusted when they say reports are "over dramatized" (and note, they didn't say "inaccurate" - oh, the wonders of diplo-speak).

It's like the protestations of innocence coming from Hamid Karzai and his brother, as communicated by their faithful channel Gerald Posner today. Who on earth would choose to believe a proven fraudster (1.5 million votes) and his alleged narco-trafficking brother?

But it's yet another nail in the coffin of the notion that "we broke it, we own it, we have to fix it" is actually going to go anywhere, ever. How many nails will be enough for the bi-partisan consensus of neoliberal and neocon hawks who are now recycling every argument used for staying in Iraq - no timetables allowed - to justify a continued presence in Afghanistan?