As Afghanistan services and equipment especially personal protection equipment (PPE), testing kits and ventilators, it also has to feed a growing number of people who were already living under the poverty line. However, both donor and public trust is at a very low level due to the prevalence of corruption making it very difficult for the Afghan Government to raise the funds needed and to spend the resources in a satisfactory manner. There are already wide-spread allegations of waste, mismanagement and corruption in handling the COVID-19 situation including purchasing of personal protection equipment and materials at exorbitant rates, supply of substandard materials such as hand sanitizers and lack of access to personal protection equipment in many of the hospitals and health centers we have surveyed. Nevertheless, it is not a completely hopeless situation. The government can take certain measures to address the trust deficit with the donors and the public while raising, allocating, and spending the funds needed to tackle COVID-19 in the country. Open budgeting and open contracting (including transparency and public participation) could greatly assist the government overcome the situation.

According to the recently published Open Budget Survey (OBS) results, Afghanistan only provides limited budget information to its citizens. The overall budget transparency score of Afghanistan is 50 out of 100 while the public participation score is 15 out of 100  and the oversight score is 31 out of 100. While the scores did not improve in the last two years, there are many low-hanging fruits that the Afghan Government can pick to increase budget transparency. This includes publishing budget documents in a timely manner such as the pre-budget statement which the government produced last year but did not publish on time. In addition, providing more details in budget documents and reports and allowing civil society

Afghanistan has made great strides in improving transparency around public procurement. However, there are still many steps that need to be taken such as initiating e-procurement and improving publishing contract data based on Open Contracting Data Standards. More specifically to the COVID-19 situation, transparency and accountability around emergency procurement has to increase taking into account civil society recommendations around this issue. The government should take the following actions:

• Emergency procurement should be minimized to only necessary situations and when such decisions are made, they should be justified, recorded, and publicized to create transparency and accountability around such decisions.
• The government should publish emergency procurement data through its procurement portal AGEOPS in a timely manner including all emergency procurements made by the provincial governments.
• When publishing data, full publication should be the norm including publishing all documents such as price quotations, procurement decisions including a justification for those decisions, invoices, prices, type and quality of goods, and receipts.
• Carry out public audits of emergency funds and emergency procurement by the Supreme Audit Office, engaging civil society and the public in the audit process.
• Enable civil society groups and journalists’ participation through the provision of timely and detailed information and opportunities for meaningful participation in monitoring emergency procurement and carrying out social audits of such expenditures.  

View expressed in this article are of the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Pajhwok’s editorial policy.