By Haris Jahangeer
Afghanistan has been repeatedly ranked
as one of most corrupt countries in the world; the 2012 Corruption
Perception Index (CPI)
ranked Afghanistan the third most corrupt country in the world with a score 8
out of 100. Afghanistan, together with North Korea and Somalia, are the only
countries that scored below 10 among 174 States in this index, which means that
the public sector is perceived as very corrupt in those countries.The
National Corruption Survey (NCS) 2012, conducted by Integrity Watch Afghanistan in 2012,
attests that corruption is considered the third biggestproblem byAfghans
citizens after insecurity and unemployment. Approximately $ 1.25 billion waspaid
in bribes in 2012, which is equal to 6% of Afghanistan’s GDP.Theimperative
questionwe need to askis: why there is so much corruption in Afghanistan?[i]
There are a large
number of factors contributing to this chaotic situation, ranging from the
patronage nature of society to the flooding international aid in the aftermath
of Taleban regime.This blog will explore one of the multiple reasons of the
endemic corruption in Afghanistan: the link between corruption and the low wage
of ordinary civil servants and disruption caused by the much higher wages of
staff and advisors in governmental positionsfunded by international donors.
This is especially important tounderstanding administrative and petty
corruption since the civil servants who are in charge of service delivery receive
inadequatewages to cover simple living costs.
There is a direct
link between low salary of government officials and corruption.Therefore,the anti-corruption
campaign must take in account this element.The low salary of Afghan government
employeesis a source of demotivation. This encourages them to extract bribesfrom
clients without feeling any guilt, especially when they see a considerable
number of government employees who are paid throughinternational funding gettingmuch
higher earnings plus better working environment and fancy equipment. These
issues contribute topoor quality of services and widespread corruption. This
may sound like a sweeping claim, but if you take a few minutes and talk to any
governmental employee, the first challenge that they most likely point out is their
own lowsalary.The second issue would probably be the grievances from the incentives
and privileges of so-called ‘professional elites’.
According to Ministry
of Finance data cited in one of the World Bank reports,an ordinary civil
servant wage is ranged from $50 to $500 per month. However, a number of civil
servants who went through the Pay and Grade process get from US $100 to over US
$700 per month. There is a huge gap between this amount and salaries ofexternally
funded staff,which rangefromUS $200to US $4000 per month.There are
approximately 7000 ofexternally funded staff members working in the government
of Afghanistan.[ii]
In addition, when it comes to salaries or high ranked advisors and
international consultants, the gap is even wider. The cost of a full-time
international consultant is estimated between$250,000– $500,000 for the Afghan government
annually.[iii]
Buying technical assistance for reconstruction of Afghanistan has cost billions
of dollars since the collapse of Taleban regime. For example, in 2009, underthe
Obama administration, almost 1000 technical experts were deployed in Afghanistan
to help the government ona wide range of issues from economic development to
rule of law. It was extremely expensive, costing the United State almost two
billion USD.[iv]
The question remain that needs to be answered is, what has been the
contribution of deployment of development missionaries?Surprisingly, the Afghan
stateremains fragile, as it was ranked the 6th most fragile state in the world,
according to 2012
Failed State Index.
When you discussthis
situationwith civil servants,and especially about the contributions of
advisors, you immediately feel the existence of strong sense of jealousy among
the civil servants. Onone occasion, one of government employees franklyexpressed
his frustrations withthe existence ofthis double standard wagesystem. He said
that “people who are in the projects as an advisor are not somuch different
regardingthe in qualifications than us, except that they just know a few words in
English or they have a foreign passport.”[v]Furthermore,
the sense of jealousy toward international consultants is also easily and often
visible. For instance, some of national advisors mentioned that there is no
significant dissimilarity between them and international advisors, except the
advisors get high salaries, security, holiday and the work they produce is a
good thing to attract more funding from donors—nothing else.[vi]
The irony is that
these advisors are assigned to build the capacity of the same civil servant who
feels inferiortothem and also always gossiping about their salaries, luxury
offices and other privileges that they have.In capacity-buildingprogrammes mutual
cooperation andtrust are extremely important. At the end of the day,the
objective of any capacity-building intervention is to transfer the knowledge
and skills of technical assisters totrainees, and this is virtually impossible
without mutual cooperation and within a broken relationship marked by mistrust.
One of the advisorsat the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock cited a civil
servant who told him during training that “it would have been better to increase our salaries instead of all the
repetitive trainings”.[vii] What happens in this circumstance is very obvious:
the capacity-building programme will not meet its intended objectives and it
actually increases the risk of corruption in the system.
This double
standard waging system undermines publicadministration reforms intended to mitigate
the risk of corruption, and it may even have the reverse effects.Competent
governmentstaff from the public sector getdemotivated and leave the
administration system. Upon receiving new skills theywill leave thepublic
sector and be hired in proxy systems which are designed to build the capacity
of government institutions. There are
many instances when civil servants who gain basic knowledge of project
management and English orwhohave been sent abroad have been hired as a
consultant. This is kind of a brain-drain from public service.Consequently,
less competent people remain in the Afghan government. On one hand, they are
unable to provide high quality of service. On the other hand, due to unequal treatment,
they feel more justification for misusing the power entrusted to them for
private gain.It is worth mentioning that the dysfunctional and complicated
bureaucracy in state administration makes the extraction of money out their clients’
pocket easier.
This is one of
the reasonswhy wehave so much corruption inAfghanistan. Establishment of a
meaningful payment mechanism thattreats public officials fairly is a critical
step toward mitigating corruption. Harmonization of the scale of salaries in
the government must be the most important component of such mechanism.Civil society
should advocate for promoting a fair payment system and greater transparency in
capacity-building programs. The International community can also play major
role in persuading the government to develop a fair payment system and address
the challenge of externally funded staff.
[i]
Note: this blog is written based on the data a number of interviews and
observation that were conducted early
2013
[ii]
World Bank (2012), Afghanistan in
Transition: Looking Beyond 2014http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:23052411~pagePK:34370~piPK:34424~theSitePK:4607,00.html
[iii]MethwWoldman
, (2008) Falling Short: Aid Effectiveness in Afghanistan http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/ACBAR_aid_effectiveness_paper_0803.pdf
[iv]Cornwell , Susaun (2011), Reuters , http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/08/us-usa-afghanistan-aid-idUSTRE7876NF20110908
If Afghan people will have a chance to have an income protection cover, they would much rather purchase one instead of relying on their government in times of unemployment.
ReplyDelete