KABUL (SW): The Integrity Watch Afghanistan (IWA) on Monday grilled the National Unity Government (NUG) for its alleged ‘symbolic’ moves against corruption.
While present its annual report, the IWA officials said that the NUG has failed to comply with promises it made in regard to curbing corruption, and dismantling/ reforming the anti-corruption bodies established during the previous government.
The IWA Chief Syed Ikram Afzali said on the occasion that the ‘symbolic’ anti-corruption moves by the NUG are in contradiction with the UN’s Jakarta Convention. “Those organizations established recently and those formed during the Karzai era are against the UN Jakarta Convention’s anti-corruption pledges”, he said. Afzali highlighted the UN Convention demands that the anti-corruption institutions should work freely against corruption, for penalization and public awareness.
Nasir Taimori, one of the researchers who prepared the IWA’s annual report, charged that the NUG has failed to replace the previously existing anti-corruption bodies with new and apolitical ones. He went on to say that the NUG has only taken symbolic measures for reforms in the judicial and legal system. “Unfortunately, the NUG has no law or strategy in place to eliminate corruption. Even the government does not know which direction it is heading for establishing institutions for curbing corruption”, he said.
Taimori mentioned that the Integrity Watch, Transparency International and SIGAR have also pronounced the High Council for Anti-Corruption as a ‘useless’ organization as it lacks authority.
ENDS
