Monday July 18, 2016
Kabul (BNA) Based on president’s order, the number of Afghan security forces should be verified by an advanced system to remove existence of ghost police problems, something that sparked great controversy in the country.
The government of Afghanistan is making effort to prevent administrative corruption in its all organizations to avoid such challenges. Meanwhile, President Ashraf Ghani ordered the security entities to use biometric system to specify the exact number of the country’s security forces. The Afghan government is also trying to assure the international community on existence of any soldier and guarantee there is no imaginary soldier in security entities. It is to be mentioned that the government of Afghanistan has committed to bring transparency to assure the international community their money is not spent on imaginary security forces, but is spent on those security forces fighting armed insurgents in the battlefields. The ministries of defense and interior have rejected the reports on existence of ghost security forces. But, some investigations show a number of soldiers carry out other works, however, they receive salary and privileges.
Rejecting the reports, the ministry of defense says we won’t pay salary to those soldiers who don’t have physical presence. Ghost police are those whose names are existed at the table of salaries, but don’t have physical presence in the police ranks. Meanwhile, Helmand provincial governor, Hayatullah Hayat confirmed existence of ghost police among the security forces, adding their salaries are also paid. Based on investigations, the local officials in Nadi Ali and Marja districts as well as Lashkargah claim to have discovered at least 400 “ghost soldiers” in the areas. According to local officials, the main reason behind easily seizing of the security posts by armed insurgents is lack of enough police around the country, particularly, in insecure provinces and districts. Existence of ghost police causes the Afghan security forces to face many challenges. If the government of Afghanistan doesn’t prevent corruption, the international community would stop its assisting. In the meantime, the government of Afghanistan should have the specific number of its Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghanistan National Police (ANP).
The ministry of defense has declared to implement biometric system once again on all its forces to assure the doubts and questions are removed. This is while that five months ago the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction agency (SIGAR) reported that the exact number of the Afghan security forces is not clear to both Kabul and Washington, as U.S. has recently declared it cannot pay the salary of hundreds of dream police forces.Therefore, the government of Afghanistan should make effort to uproot corruption in its all administrations, because, this phenomenon causes the government armed insurgents don’t be punished and freely continue their subversive activities across the country.
Hamidullah Faizi
