|
|
|
|
The party's over for Afghan
NGOs
By Ramtanu Maitra
On April 4, Afghan President Hamid
Karzai finally stepped out of outgoing US
Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad's shadow and called
some of the non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
operating inside Afghanistan "corrupt".
After making known Article 8 of the
new Afghan legislation that prevents NGOs from
bidding for Afghan government-sponsored project
contracts, Karzai called a meeting with
ambassadors and representatives from the United
Nations and donor countries based in Kabul.
Voicing his strong concern that some NGOs
were responsible for squandering the precious
resources that Afghanistan received in aid from
the international community, Karzai told the
gathering: "We have a responsibility towards the
Afghan people, as well as the taxpayers in the
donor countries, to stop NGOs that are corrupt,
wasteful and unaccountable."
The Afghan
president announced the establishment of a joint
task force consisting of Minister of Economy
Mohammad Amin Farhang, Minister of Rural
Rehabilitation and Development Haneef Atmar and
chief of staff of the President's Office Umer
Daudzai to examine the issue and submit
recommendations in no more than a month.
Bashar Dost's accusations
To
many observers of Afghan developments, Karzai's
denouement of the NGOs was overdue. Last November,
Abdur Rasheed Saeed of the Institute for War and
Peace (IWP) reported that Planning Minister Dr
Ramazan Bashar Dost had told him of thousands
(there are some 3,000 NGOs operating within
Afghanistan, of which close to 350 are
foreign-based) of NGOs that had failed to deliver
effective assistance to the stressed Afghan
people. In December, ostensibly under pressure
from the NGOs and the countries they represent,
Dost was forced to resign. It was evident that in
asking Dost to step down, Karzai, whether he liked
it or not, had to succumb to the external
pressure.
Since becoming the planning
minister in March 2004, Bashar Dost made it clear
publicly that the NGOs were ineffective and had
wasted money that should be being spent on the
Afghan people. Pointing out that existing Afghan
law "didn't clarify the responsibility of NGOs and
the procedure for their control", Dost spearheaded
a draft law that would regulate their operations.
He noted that when an NGO received funds, either
from a government or a non-governmental source,
they are supposed to distribute most of those
funds to the people of Afghanistan. "I have yet to
see an NGO that has spent 80% of its money for the
benefit of the Afghans and 20% for their own
benefit," he said.
"International NGOs get
big amounts of money from their own nations just
by showing them sensitive pictures and videos of
Afghan people, and there are even some individuals
who give all their salaries to NGOs to spend it on
charity here. But [the NGOs] spend all the money
on themselves, and we are unable to find out how
much money they originally received in charitable
funds," Bashar Dost told the IWP.
Dost
advocates elimination of "NGO-ism" - and not NGOs.
He told the IWP that there are some so-called NGOs
that operate for profit, like private companies.
"I haven't seen any NGO at all which works
efficiently yet," he added.
A
predictable uproar
Dost's comments angered
the NGOs and the United Nations. Paul Barker,
country director of the aid agency CARE, declared:
"These ill-founded, unsubstantiated and
generalized attacks, from a government minister,
are creating a climate in which the government is
seen to be legitimizing attacks on NGOs." Of
course Parker did not want to urge the Karzai
government to investigate and substantiate Dost's
charges, suggesting he is wholly aware that the
planning minister was not whistling in the dark,
and that evidence of a cobweb of corruption may
come out if such investigations were carried out.
Instead, Barker, speaking for the NGO
community, took the high road, accusing the
planning minister of aiding attacks on the NGOs.
Similarly, without making reference to the Afghan
minister's charges, UN spokesman Manoel de Almeida
e Silva told a news briefing in November:
"Justification of violence in general, and against
NGOs in particular, is unacceptable. The
government has a paramount duty to uphold law and
order and it cannot be involved in legitimizing or
condoning physical aggression in any way."
Missing the real issue
The UN
spokesman's statement is certainly true, in
general. But both Dr Parker and the UN are dodging
the real issue. The fact is that NGO activity in
Afghanistan raises many legitimate questions. For
instance, using their foreign and donor nations'
links the tax-exempt NGOs have gotten access to
government contracts that tax-paying local
commercial companies should have won. The NGOs,
using their political muscle and their well-oiled
linkages to the International Security Assistance
Forces, won some contracts by developing access to
government officials, including ministers, some of
whom were formerly their employees. Because of the
higher pay they can offer, some of these NGOs have
hired qualified individuals who would otherwise be
available to serve the government.
One can
get a whiff of the type of "NGO-Raj" that angered
Dost in an article published in Outside magazine
(December 2003): "When the world community of
do-gooders arrives to rescue a nation from itself,
the first sign is the blinding white traffic jam.
White Land Rovers stack up thick at the airport;
white Nissan Pathfinders block the streets at
lunch; miraculous white-on-white Toyota Land
Cruisers choke the traffic circles of the lucky
target country. This caravan of chariots was
triple-parked outside the Mustafa Hotel in
downtown Kabul on a Saturday night. Late-model
4x4s filled the avenue and circled the block,
churning up dust as the chauffeurs maneuvered for
parking. I threaded my way through a cluster of
acronyms: UN, UNESCO, UNDP, UNHCR, FAO, UNICEF,
UNICA, UNAMA, UNOPS, UNEP, MSF, ACF, MAP, MACA,
IRC, WFP, IOM, IMC. Even the hotel was painted
white. I could hear Shakira [Colombian singer and
sex symbol] playing faintly from above."
Similarly, a writer for the Chennai-based
Indian daily The Hindu, posted in Kabul,
observed: "People working in some of these NGOs
lead a lavish lifestyle. A look at their offices
and their houses, the way they are furnished, the
air-conditioned cars they drive, all add to the
resentment of the people, as it all comes out of
the aid being pumped into the country."
In
an article that appeared on March 26 in Der
Spiegel, under the title "Afghanscam", Susanne
Koelbl made a case, pointing out that in a country
where the per capita income is just US$200,
foreigners, or more appropriately the "$1,000 men"
are jostling the streets of Kabul. Koelbl says the
so-called $1,000 men were everywhere, hired by
donor institutions like the World Bank or the
Asian Development Bank. Recently, a list of
salaries surfaced, causing a medium-sized
political earthquake in the government. An
employee of the British consulting firm Crown
Agents, for example, received $207,000 for his
180-day placement in the Aid Coordination Office,
plus expenses. Another submitted a bill for
$242,000 for 241 days - 10 times as much as the
Afghan minister responsible for running the
ministry earns in a year.
The
$1,000-a-day men
In addition, hundreds of consulting
firms are competing for huge projects, and the
number of active consultants in Afghanistan is
estimated to be at least 3,000. "Suddenly there
were more consultants than flies and dogs in this
city," said an employee of the US Embassy who has
worked in Kabul for two years. One German diplomat
estimates that at least a quarter of US relief aid
is spent on foreign experts alone, Susanne Koelbl
wrote.
The article discusses one such
consultant, William Strong, a 67-year-old
Californian who recently landed a $30 million
contract. Strong has a valid background making
money in almost all of the world's crisis regions.
He lives together with a dozen international
co-workers in a $12,000-a-month villa in the
northern part of Kabul. Working for a company
called Emerging Markets Group, he has been given
the task by the Afghan government of surveying the
country's land and clarifying property ownership.
"This is a huge market," a rapturous Strong said,
before complaining that it's hard to find people
who are "more interested in their job than money",
Koelbl reported.
Koelbl's article also looks at
another successful company, Bearing Point. With
its headquarters in McLean, Virginia, the global
consulting firm's Afghanistan budget alone is
more than $100 million. Reports indicate the
company's chief executive, Ed Elrahal, has
succeeded in placing 70 of his company's consultants
in the government. Elrahal's employees aren't
allowed to talk to the press and in the
few cases where they are, they can only do so under
strict supervision. Nevertheless, one of the company's
employees in the Finance Ministry told Koelbl
why he is working here - anonymously, of course.
In Kabul, he earns the same amount he would in
far more dangerous Iraq - a daily rate plus a
supplement of 50% for hardship and danger pay. But
he refuses to disclose the amount - "It's a company
secret," he said. But those with experience here
know that the daily rate for the US Agency
for International Development (USAID), which operates
globally, is $840.
The lifestyle of the
foreign NGOs is not all that draws the ire of
Afghan locals. Objection has also been raised to
the corruption associated with the forming of fake
community organizations, delivering small credits
to the rich or friends of the NGO staff, reporting
fake community development schemes, sharing the
funds allocated for such schemes with a few
community members, conducting meaningless training
just for the sake of training, and over-budgeting
the same to the donors. What angers other Afghans
is the exuberance of the NGOs in funding programs
related to "gender and development", which the
more religious types perceive as "anti-Islam."
There is also a deeper, political point.
Bashar Dost is among those who point out that NGOs
in Afghanistan have not always functioned the way
they are now. When the Taliban were in power, most
NGOs were truly involved in humanitarian
activities. But now there exists a
semi-functioning government that the international
community - in other words, the United States -
wants to strengthen.
Donors like USAID
want NGOs to work hand-in-hand with the Afghan
government and the US military, and to wear donor
political support on their sleeves. They are
reportedly being asked to subjugate their
anti-poverty missions to broader, more complex
political and sometimes military goals. And this
raises serious issues that ought not to be swept
under the rug.
Ramtanu Maitra
writes for a number of international journals and
is a regular contributor to the Washington-based
EIR and the New Delhi-based Indian Defence Review.
He also writes for Aakrosh, India's defense-tied
quarterly journal.
(Copyright 2005
Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
All material on this
website is copyright and may not be republished in any form without written
permission.
© Copyright 1999 - 2005 Asia Times
Online Ltd.
|
|
Head
Office: Rm 202, Hau Fook Mansion, No. 8 Hau Fook St., Kowloon, Hong
Kong
Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
|
|
|
|
