ISAF, 3 Afghan entities worst in graft fight

KABUL (Pajhwok): The Monitoring and Evaluation Committee (MEC) on Wednesday released its fifth half-yearly report that indicated corruption continued to permeate all aspects of Afghan life.

The report provides MEC’s latest evaluation of anti-corruption initiatives and highlights its activities as the independent voice monitoring national and international anti-corruption efforts in Afghanistan.

It said the MEC conducted a detailed assessment of the implementation of all of its recommendations and benchmarks resulting in scores being assigned to implementing institutions based on their responsiveness.

According to the report, the ranking of institutions revealed that the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriations (MORR), and the Afghanistan Investment Support Agency (AISA) had been the worst performing institutions in the fight against corruption.

It said MEC’s monitoring results continued to highlight serious concerns about the prosecution of corruption cases by the hundreds, which had been reported to the Attorney General’s Office by other government agencies without sufficient investigation or prosecution.

Impunity was further illustrated in the high profile cases of Kabul Bank and the National Military Hospital, with criminal proceedings being unnecessarily delayed in the former and charges being dismissed in the latter, the report said.

Despite the overall lack of progress, it said there had been notable movement in implementing some of MEC’s recommendations, including the establishment of CoST (Construction Sector Transparency Initiative).

CoST provides for multi-stakeholder monitoring and oversight of construction projects; the creation of an anti-corruption campaign to engage over 2,700 religious scholars; and the drafting of a new Anti-Money Laundering Law.

Mr. Drago Kos, MEC’s current Chair, stated: “The results of all anti-corruption assessments carried during 2013 once more have shown that corruption still permeates all aspects of Afghan life.”

“Over the past six months MEC has identified a number of measures to tackle corruption and calls on the relevant national and international institutions for effective implementation.”

During the period covered by its report, MEC has enhanced awareness of corruption and anticorruption efforts including several meetings with members of the National Assembly, four provincial missions and open letters calling for action.

New recommendations have also been issued in relation to enhanced transparency in mining, election campaign financing, and governance and accountability within AISA.

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