MEC exposes corruption in customs offices

KABUL (Pajhwok): Interferences in the affairs of customs and revenue departments resulted in widespread corruption, a report released on Sunday said.

The report said violations of rules and regulations in appointments in the Ministry of Finance (MoF) caused drastic difference in statistics of export and import.

The Independent Joint Anti-Corruption Monitoring and Evaluation Committee (MEC) issued its report on corruption vulnerabilities in MoF’s Customs and Revenue Departments.

This comes after Pajhwok Afghan News last month reported that head of the Dispute Resolution Board was appointed illegally and some lawmakers claimed appointments in the MoF took place on the bases of back door deals.

MEC Secretary Maiwand Rohani told reporters here the report was completed five months ago but its publication was delayed for being not included in the agenda of High Rule of Law Council.

He thanked Pajhwok Afghan News for publishing the report addressing delay in the publication of MEC report.

He said the corruption vulnerability report covered period from June 2019 to November 2019.

Interferences by powerful individuals and others

According to Rohani, the report says that central and provincial government officials, parliament members and warlords interfere in the affairs of Customs and Revenue Departments, encouraging administrative corruption.

The corruption is done in individual capacity, planned smuggling, demand for bribe and use of force against personnel of Customs and Revenue Departments.

Without going into details, Rohani said: “In most of the provinces, provincial officials, lawmakers and local powerful individuals extort Custom Department, warn them in case of denial.” 

Violation of recruitment procedure

Rohani said according to the MEC report, massive irregularities were committed by the Human Resources Office in the recruitment process.

Due to these irregularities, some positions remained empty for a period of time and individuals who lacked technical capacity had been appointed in the Customs Department.

He said: “We inspected 100 documents of the Human Resource Office in which majority lacked educational documents and appointed in violation of the Independent Civil Services and Administrative Reform Commission (ICSARC) recruitment procedure.” 

Rohani said some parts of the Customs Departments were not connected with ASYCUDA system and the Customs Department suffered daily in its work due to non-availability of back up electricity.

In addition, balances in the entry and exit gates of the Customs Department are dysfunctional.

Wrong statistics of export and import

The MEC secretary said due to the absence of Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) documents or lack of its implementation, there was a huge difference in the export and import statistics.

Presenting an example, he said the United Arab Emirates (UAE) export and import with Afghanistan was 14 times higher comparing to the statistics provided by the Customs and Revenue Departments of Afghanistan.

Lack of awareness on global transit guidelines

Ajmal Shakir, in charge of MEC’s vulnerability assessment, said officials of the Custom Departments know little to implement international custom related guidelines so that transit of goods is properly controlled, avoid unnecessary delay and export of imported goods.

He said lack of coordination with the Border Management Authority, non-existence of information and infrastructure system, use of low quality lock seals instead of electronic locks seals which are easy to monitor are some other transit related issues.

Recommendations

MEC report has offered 73 recommendations to custom offices in areas of legal framework, human resource management, information system, procedures and internal control system in order to address corruption vulnerabilities in these areas and removed threats.

 Nh/ma