The Afghan government is set to announce the long-awaited national anti-corruption strategy within the next three days – a strategy that will hopefully curb the trend and crack down on corrupt officials.
The Presidential Palace said Afghanistan values the views of its international partners and civil society institutions and that their ideas would be included in the new strategy.
Monitoring groups cautiously welcomed the move.
Amid speculation over the implementation of the new strategy, officials from Integrity Watch Afghanistan (IWA) said that an inclusive and independent body was needed to oversee and implement the strategy.
“Unfortunately there is a solid mechanism or a sovereign and independent body needed to implement this strategy in the right way,” said IWA researcher Nasir Taimoori.
“The views of civil society institutions and our international partners will be gathered in the next three days so that the document is finalized in a comprehensive way,” President Ashraf Ghani’s spokesman Shahhussain Murtazawi said.
Under the new strategy, the Afghan government will also consider a wide range of reforms in the nation’s security and defense sectors.
“We are doing our best to eliminate corruption from the ministry of defense and we have made some gains in this respect,” said defense ministry spokesman Dawlat Waziri.
“It’s too late now, I wish the strategy was finalized during the first days of this government, but they still need to punish those who commit major corruption so that the public can trust it (government),” said university lecturer Tahir Hashimi.
Critics however argue that over the past three years government has taken a number of symbolic measures when it comes to the campaign against corruption and that nothing has changed on the ground. They said corruption continues to tarnish the image of the country in the minds of the international community.
The new strategy comes amid growing pressure on the Afghan government from the international community to take firms steps to root out corruption – especially as so much aid provided by foreign countries has allegedly been embezzled.