HERAT CITY (SW) – Private sector representatives in Herat on Tuesday levelled allegations of corruption and poor management at the customs directorate in the province.
At a press conference in front of the Herat Customs Department, representatives of the province’s Chamber of Commerce and Industries, saffron growers’ associations, businesswomen and a number of civil society members spoke about the alleged widespread corruption.
Customs officials, they said, were busy in looting the government revenues and becoming billionaires and eventually heading to Iran, Turkey and Dubai. According to the protesters, an ordinary customs official was making up to AFN 150,000 a day.
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Naeem Ghayur, a political activist, said on the occasion that widespread corruption in Afghanistan’s customs, especially in Herat, has made life difficult for traders. Ghayur, who has worked for some time in Herat’s police department, said the corrupt customs officials and the mafia involved in this corruption spend government revenue on their luxury parties.
“I have seen a young man who works at the first gate of the customs office earning AFN 150,000 a day and another young man who works at the second gate earning AFN 8000 a day,” he said.
Syed Masood Sadat, deputy chairman of the Oil and Gas Committee of the Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Industries, told the news conference that it had become commonplace at the Herat customs office to allow the imported goods to be taken out for bribes without paying proper taxes.
He said high-value goods at Herat customs are collected at very low tax and the money goes into the pockets of corrupt officials. According to him, the corrupt customs officials are known to the government and the government should expose them.
Bashir Ahmad Rashidi, president of the Afghanistan Saffron Growers’ Association in Herat, told the news conference that the price of saffron had dropped by 5 per cent since last year, while tons of saffron were being exported from Herat every month. The price of saffron in the province’s markets is falling day by day. He blamed the fall in the price of saffron in Herat’s markets on the province’s illegal import of saffron from Iran and said security and intelligence agencies were neglecting it.
He warned that Afghanistan’s saffron industry will lose its mark if left unchecked.
A number of businesswomen and members of civil society said on the occasion that the continuation of the duties of caretakers in the Herat Customs Department and the lack of scanners have led to widespread corruption in the department.
Omar Momand, deputy director of the customs department at the Ministry of Finance, acknowledged that there was corruption in the country’s customs and said that the customs agencies that deal with customs were also involved in corruption. He spoke of reforms in the country’s customs over the past few months, saying that these reforms had led to a 5 per cent increase in the country’s customs revenue in the first six months of the year compared to the same period last year.
According to him, the customs revenue in the first five months of the current fiscal year was AFN 22.2 billion, which has risen to 25.5 billion afghanis in the first five months of this year.
Nisar Ahmad Naseri, director of Herat’s customs department, also acknowledged corruption in the customs department, but said that due to reforms in the past two months, the customs revenue had increased by 24 per cent.
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