UN Afghan graft report corrupt
2010-01-20 19:05
Kabul - Afghanistan's finance minister on Wednesday lashed out at a UN report naming corruption as the top concern for Afghans, saying the detailed document on graft was "full of flaws".
The report released Tuesday by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) found that 59% of Afghans felt that "public dishonesty" was a bigger concern than insecurity or unemployment.
It calculated that Afghans had paid about $2.5bn in bribes over the past 12 months - equivalent to almost one quarter of the nation's GDP.
Finance Minister Omar Zakhailwal dismissed the findings and accused United Nations officials of using the report "for personal promotion."
"I'm pretty confident that this report is full of flaws," he said after a meeting of the Joint Coordination and Monitoring Board (JCMB), a panel of Afghan and international officials overlooking progress in post-Taliban Afghanistan.
"Corruption exists, we are committed to eliminating it, but what makes us unhappy is that people make either a political statement of the corruption or use it for personal promotion," he said.
Cheap self promotion
"I think the (UN report) doesn't help with the corruption here, I think it was for self promotion and I think it's a very cheap way of doing that."
Zakhailwal said Kabul was committed to fighting graft, a key demand from Western nations propping up President Hamid Karzai's government.
"We have come a long way in one year alone. I have doubled the revenue in customs, what does it mean? It means both that corruption exists and the progress we have made on this front must be acknowledged," he added.
Based on interviews with 7 600 people across Afghanistan, the UN report found graft was part of everyday life, with police, local officials, judges and members of government named as the biggest culprits.
- SAPA
