Monday November 14, 2016
Kabul (BNA) President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Mohammad Ashraf Ghani, in a meeting of the house of people administrative delegate, chief of the commissions and the parliamentarian groups said he didn’t want to enter a confrontation with the Wolesi Jirga. He said, the house of people has legally allowed to do its own decision and it well realize welfare and salvation of the people and can do what leads towards good governance and fighting corruption. But he asked for suspension of the interpellation and questioning process as he argued at least 100 countries of the world have same problem on how to spend their development budget. He said budget expenditure has far improved in 2016, through what he said the government’s effort to bring improvement in the financial and budget system of the country. Present at the meeting, CEO Dr. Abdullah also said implementation of the budget has direct link to security, and that plan to continue questioning the minister would further slow the process of development budget use. Abdul Rauf Ibrahmi, House Chairman, thanked the president, as the chief of the three forces, for securing close cooperation and coordination with the house of people, said the house would act based on the law and hoped the process could continue in the future. The president said that he was committed to both the international community and the Afghans that no money or aids would be used, unless basic reforms were not restored.
At a joint consultative meeting of the cabinet and the house leading body, the president said his country’s commitment to the international community required to bring a transparent process in the expenditure of the budget, as he believed the budget was the main motive of the country’s economic momentum. The assertions come after, the house of people in an unprecedented measure disqualified three ministers for failing to spend most part of their development budget and asked for soon picking up replacements to fill the cabinet created gaps. Since corruption has become a major challenge before the Afghan government, the cabinet is making effort to transparently and fairly use their budget in order to remain accountable to both Afghans and donors. Optional budget, the president believed failure to be spent duly, was, because of non-authorization of the cabinet members, and that if it was duly submitted to the cabinet, they would have face no problem in their use. The government has established counter-corruption justice and judiciary center, with so far pursuing the files of two people; a high ranking attorney and the other a member of Azizi Bank. The attorney case was suspended, but the Azizi Bank’s staff case ended with punishing him in 10 years in jail and returning $152,000.
The center made the Afghans hopeful for hard work of the government to eliminate corruption and bring transparency in the budget expenditures.
The government is committed to allow no corrupt or other powerful individuals to disturb the process and will share their issues with the nation, if reported bothering or in any means creating obstacle before the process, or keep them aside from being legal trail.
President Ghani has pledged that he would first share their [those creating stalemate before counter-corruption process] names with the people and then bring them to justice. The government of national unity, with president Ghani on the lead, has committed to fight corruption enough to uproot it completely eve in the price of his life. Corruption is of those vicious phenomenon that created insecurity, unemployment, fueled war, harmed national budget use, provided ground for looting the country’s mines, financed the government armed oppositions, faced good governance with challenges, created obstacle and disorder before the government’s functions that resulted in harming Afghanistan’s prestige and reputation before the international community. Many of 100 world countries have also been reported to have been failed to use their budget, with Afghanistan’s failure in this area, could be reasoned of mostly insecurity and non-authorization of development budget use by the ministers, as they said they have received the budget very later than the time to be spent. The budget is hoped to be handed over to them duly to help remove the problem in the future.
