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"My house is worth about $50,000, and I've been told that I can have the title if I pay $25,000 — half the value of the home," Farani said. (NY Times photo) |
CAIRO — Seven years after the US invasion, everything in Afghanistan became for sale from public posts to a person's freedom.
"It is very shameful, but probably I will pay the bribe," Mohammed Naim, a young Kabul-based English teacher, told The New York Times on Friday, January 2.
Naim's brother was arrested a week ago and the police are demanding a 4,000-dollar bribe for his release.
"Everything is possible in this country now. Everything," he said.
Corruption has penetrated every nook and cranny in Afghanistan.
Now, everything has a price.
Afghans pay bribes to get electricity for their homes, get out of jail and even to enter the airport.
Driving a convoy of trucks loaded with fuel across the country costs $6,000 per truck.
It costs $100,000 to become a provincial police chief.
To settle a lawsuit, one must be prepared to pay thousands depending on the judge.
"You are approached indirectly, by intermediaries, this is how it works," said Farooq Farani, who has been coming to the court for seven years trying to resolve a property dispute.
"My house is worth about $50,000, and I've been told that I can have the title if I pay $25,000."
Corrupt Gov't
Afghans say that corruption has taken over their West-backed government.
"Every man in the government is his own king," says Abdul Ghafar, a truck driver who routinely pays bribes to the police to be allowed to pass through Kabul.
"This government has lost the capacity to govern because a shadow government has taken over," agrees Ashraf Ghani, a former finance minister who quit his post in 2004.
He said the country, invaded by the US shortly after 9/11, is now run by drug dealers.
"The narco-mafia state is now completely consolidated."
According to the Times, people in the highest levels of the government, including President Hamid Karzai's brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, are linked to corruption and drug trade.
Transparency International, a German organization that gauges honesty in government, ranked Afghanistan 176 out of 180 countries in 2008.
"All the politicians in this country have acquired everything — money, lots of money," Karzai admitted in November.
"God knows, it is beyond the limit. The banks of the world are full of the money of our statesmen."
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