Ask any afghan ‘What makes you proud as an afghan?’ the response is quite monotonous ‘5000 years of history, great warriors and great invaders plus successful repulsion of the Great Britain and USSR in the beginning and end of the previous century respectively’ but when it comes to governing this war torn, fractious land after the invasion of US and installment of Mr. Karzai as its president, it seems everything has a price. Do you want to be a police chief? It costs you & 75,000-100,000. Want to settle a lawsuit over the ownership of your property, about $15,000-25,000 depending on the nature of the judge. Want to secure the release of a loved one from police custody, be ready to spend around $ 2000-4000.

On the streets of Kabul, tales of corruption are on the tip of everyone’s tongue. Everything appears to be for sale; public offices, access to government services, even a person’s freedom. Even for the attestation of educational documents poor students need to submit ‘shirini’ as known locally, bribe to the officers of relevant departments. Mr. Asadullah, a resident of Kunduz Province, had to use the authority of his father who is a school principal in order to avoid paying shirini to the educational department officer for signing his documents. The examples mentioned above were offered by people who experienced them directly or witnessed the transactions. According to Dexter Filkins article on the same subject in The New York Times ‘a rift of investigations has concluded that people at the highest levels of the Karzai administration, including President Karzai’s own brother, Ahmad Wali Karzai, are cooperating (rather actively involved) in the country’s opium trade, now the world’s largest. The corruption publicly acknowledged by Karzai, is contributing to the collapse of public confidence in his government and to the resurgence of the Taliban, whose fighters have moved to the outskirts of Kabul, the capital. “All the politicians in this country have acquired everything –money, lots of money,” President Karzai said in a speech at a rural development conference in November. “God knows, it is beyond the limit. The banks of the world are full of money of our statesmen.” A very strong evidence of corruption is the neighborhood of SHERPUR in Kabul. Before 2001 it was merely a vacant patch of hillside that overlooked the posh neighborhood of Wazir Akbar Khan. Today it is the wealthiest enclave in the country with gaudy, grandiose mansions that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Afghans refer to them as “Poppy Houses”. Sherpur itself is often jokingly called as “SHERCHUR” which means city of loot. Mr. Ashraf Ghani (Ex-Finance Minister) and Mr. Muhammad Amin Farhang (Ex-Trade Minister) both were forced to resign, the first by President Karzai’s behavior and the second by the Parliament. Mr. Ghani had proposed drawing up a set of regulations to govern private property but was strongly ordered by the President to “back off” from the plan. This led to the forceful resignation of Ashraf Ghani. While M. Amin Farhang revealed that he wanted to sack an officer of his ministry in charge of giving out licenses for new businesses of oil and gas. The man, Mr. Farhang said, would grant a license only in exchange for a hefty bribe. But Mr. Farhang found that he was unable to fire the man, who, he said, simply bribed other members of the government to reinstate him.

The story of corruption in Afghanistan can’t end in words. For a driving silence, pay $100 and get it even if you don’t know how to rotate the steering wheel. In the same sense the unfolding cases of corruption in Afghanistan goes on.

Transparency International, a German organization that gauges honesty in government, ranked Afghanistan 117 out of 180 countries in 2005. In 2008 it fell to 176, which simply means the fourth most corrupt state in the world.