SIGAR To Help Afghanistan Fight Corruption

Kabul (BNA) Efforts had been done to fight corruption, in the last more than 13 years, but nothing tangible had so far been witnessed. Growingly expansion of the corruption in the country have left nothing except backwardness and Afghanistan development to face different challenges. A number of house of people members and experts, believed the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) have cooperated much in fighting corruption with Afghanistan and is still committed to provide cooperation in this field. The move by the SIGAR can do much in help with Afghanistan to take effective step to eliminate corruption, said an expert Aziz Rafiye, head of civil society complex. “SIGAR is a research entity and had done much in providing research on corruption in different parts of the country that could be called a strong cooperation with the government of Afghanistan, but many others’ activities had not still left tangible consequences,” said Rafiye who asked the entire entities working in this field to fully provide cooperation and coordination with the government of Afghanistan to distinguish any corrupt and bring them to justice. Another expert, Akram Afzali, head of Afghanistan Transparency Watch praised the SIGAR activities and said the entity had done effective in revealing many cases that money had not been spent transparently. The government, he said should strengthen the SIGAR entity and do its best to find corrupts and bring them to justice, everywhere in the government offices and other non-governmental organizations. However, he blamed the government’s sluggish activities in this respect and that the SIGAR entity can play key role in investigation of corruption cases and that what the government claim doesn’t match its practices in war on corruption. Reports about corruption cases and how the money are being spent should be shared with the media and the people to help money used fairly, he said. But, a house of people member, Hashemi said SIGAR should launch serious investigation into the corruption cases in Afghanistan in order to draw trust from the people, as he believed many cases had been found through the SIGAR investigation inaccurate and having no match the truths. Monitoring the process of counter-corruption matters is one of the key issues and should be seriously conducted in order to help the process get success and the expenditures prove transparent, said Javid Kohistani who added the process should enjoy full support from the entities fighting corruption.