The move by the Presidential Palace to appoint Najibullah Azad as President Ashraf Ghani’s deputy spokesman has raised eyebrows as it turns out he has been a vociferous critic of the president and has in the past accused Ghani of creating a corrupt circle within the presidential palace.

Before joining the Presidential Palace staff, Azad also accused Salam Rahimi, chairman of the office of administrative affairs of the presidential palace, of hiring individuals in key government positions in exchange for money.

He also sharply criticized Ghani’s employment policy, saying the policy formulated by the president had paved the way for large-scale corruption.

Azad, who also serves as founder of Focus Research and Investigation Center, had in the past told TOLOnews that the findings of his organization had revealed that key posts are sold by certain individuals at the Presidential Palace. Now however he insists the findings of research conducted by his organization were not based on facts.

In an interview with TOLOnews four months ago, Azad said that thousands of posts at government institutions were lying vacant due to the existence of a corrupt circle operating in the Presidential Palace and in its office of administrative affairs.

“There are 30,000 vacancies within government and the president himself is responsible for these, because three months ago, on the basis of a presidential decree, the president as part of a working plan was interviewing people for first and second grade posts in order to fill these posts,” he said at the time.

In his interview, Azad accused Ghani of creating a corrupt circle within the office of administrative affairs of the Presidential Palace, and said the circle was related to a certain family that takes money from the people appointed to government institutions.

“He assigned the responsibility to a certain circle at the Presidential Palace, a circle which not only does not recognize the merit, but it prefers to do its business, those who are willing to nominate themselves for these posts must be quite rich, the circle belongs to a certain family and they take money from the individuals,” said Azad in the interview.

But now Azad has back-tracked on these remarks and said the survey carried out by his organization was fragmentary, and insisted that he had made the remarks on behalf of an  independent organization.

“I had said it with bravery in my interview and uttered it from the address of Focus organization, but our investigations were at a preliminary stage, we realized that it was not based on reality, therefore we did not publish it,” added Azad.

In an article written by him for eurasiareview website and published in December, Azad called Ghani’s National Security Advisor Mohammad Hanif Atmar, The Chess-Queen Of Afghan Politics.

In the article, Azad said that Atmar wanted to topple the government through a coup and had planned to assassinate Ghani’s first Vice President General Abdul Rashid Dostum.

“According to several secret sources pertinent to power players (power brokers) in ARG (the palace) and its peripheries, a collective move for toppling Ghani from power was organized. Seizure of the palace, was unilaterally organized by Hanif Atmar, the National Security Adviser to the President and was supported by Hamid Karzai, but foiled in the bud,” part of the article reads.

“Moreover, Dostum (Afghan Vice-President) accused the National Security Council (indirectly Mr. Atmar) for the recent attack on him. Additionally, the rumors add that Dostum assassination was also part of the coup agenda. Akhtar Ibrahimi had been tasked right from the outset to kill Dostum at an opportune time and no wonder why he was looking for someone to have as his deputy who could do the job,” reads Azad’s article.