Ghani’s inspection bureau, a political arm

Related Articles

Iranian Official: “Building wall on the Border is one of Our Goals to Prevent illegal migration”

October 20, 2024

Afghan Retirees Decry Three Years of Unpaid Pensions

October 19, 2024

Divorced Afghan child brides forced to return to former husbands

September 29, 2024

AT-KABUL: The former head of anti-corruption office said the creation of a new department titled ‘Inspection Office’ is feared to perform as a “political arm” for the government.

President Ashraf Ghani has ordered for the creation of an inspection office to meet complaints regarding the activities of senior government officials. The nine-article decree released by the presidential office on Sunday, reads that the office that is only responsible to the president, would inspect activities of senior officials including administrative units under the presidential office, the office of the chief executive and independent budget department except the activities of the president.

The new office has been called as a sub-department of the president’s chief of staff and would be performing independently and would be responsible to the president. It will inspect corruption cases and will refer the corrupt to the attorney general office.

The inspector will be appointed by the president for four years and should prepare the inspection office’s law within three months from assuming office.

The creation of the new office comes after President Ashraf Ghani annulled the anti corruption department two months ago.

The former head of anti corruption office look at the new one-member office with doubt, saying the office was feared to perform as a political arm.

Sayed Gholam Hossein Fakhri, said that the new office with only one member was legally unjustifiable. He added that the office is responsible to the president and would be run by one person, so it would not be effective to inspect large corruption cases.

Fakhri said that the current and next years in which parliamentarian and presidential elections were set to be held, are not suitable in fight against corruption, because corruption would be overshadowed by electoral campaigns and large corruption cases would not be evaluated because of the electoral businesses.

The Integrity Watch Afghanistan had earlier questioned the activities of what it called “parallel departments” of anti corruption, saying that government leaders were not committed in struggle against corruption.