Afghans Coordination Against Corruption (AFCAC) recently carried out a study into the 10 percent tax system on telecommunication companies and found that 50 percent of the public had no faith in the system. 

They felt there was no transparency in the tax collection process and that money was being embezzled. 

The study was carried out over four months. 

Officials at the AFCAC said that supervisory committees that monitor the telecommunication tax collection system do not have the capacity to deal with it, which then leads to corruption.

The findings of the AFCAC shows that the regulatory committees that are responsible for monitoring the process of collecting the tax have audited telecommunications companies only three times in the past two years – which has provided the basis for corruption.

“Unfortunately, the Afghan government did not carry out any assessment program before implementing the system because the Ministry of Finance wanted to receive the loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), they wanted to complete their conditions,” said Ehsanullah Hikmat, a program coordinator manager at AFCAC.

Officials at AFCAC said that unless a transparent system is implemented in terms of collecting the tax, the revenue will be embezzled. 

“Our suggestion is that the system must be built by a third party and the third party must have access to this system when needed,” Hikmat added. 

Meanwhile, the Afghan Ministry of Communication and Information Technology said that the ministry is working to build a transparent system for the collection of the tax and has in the past two years collected more than eight billion AFs. 

“We are working on Real Time Management system and the money must be collected from the companies for the ministry and this is government’s responsibility and I am working on the system,” said Shahzad Gul Aryobee acting minister. 

This comes after last week the Lower House of Representatives voted in favor of cancelling the levy.