At Afghan Border, Graft Is Part of the Bargain

TORKHAM, Afghanistan — Some call them “the men who sit on golden chairs” — Afghan customs officials who preside over a vast ecosystem of bribery that stretches from dusty border crossings to the capital.

They have become fabulously wealthy by depriving their aid-dependent treasury of at least $500 million a year, according to the most conservative foreign estimates.

Unseating those kings of customs, or at least stemming their thievery, is now a job for President Ashraf Ghani as he takes up his campaign promise of fighting graft. Customs is a central factor in rescuing the ailing economy, and accounted for 26 percent of government revenue last year.

Yet in interviews with a wide array of Afghan and foreign officials who live with the issue, a picture emerges of such rampant bribery and extortion that corruption can no longer be described as a cancer on the system: It is the system, they say. And it is deeply enmeshed with Afghan politics.

“The water is dirty from the source,” said Khan Jan Alokozai, deputy chairman of the Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, citing a Pashto proverb. “Governors and ministers, businessmen and bureaucrats — everyone is involved.”

The scale of the problem is evident at Torkham, a major crossing point on Afghanistan’s southeastern border with Pakistan. Every day, up to 500 trucks trundle across the Khyber Pass, kicking up clouds of dust as they cross into Afghanistan and enter a customs apparatus that has been transformed by a decade of foreign assistance.

The trucks pass a giant X-ray machine delivered by the United States military. Western-trained officials assess their cargo for import duties. The paperwork is entered into a computer system paid for by the World Bank. American-financed surveillance cameras monitor the crossing.

Yet for Afghan officials, every truck represents a fresh opportunity for personal enrichment.

Border guards pocket a small fee for opening the gate, but that is just the start. Businessmen and customs officials collude to fake invoices and manipulate packing lists. Quantity, weight, contents, country of origin — almost every piece of information can be altered to slash the customs bill, often by up to 70 percent.

“The only thing you can’t change is the color of the truck,” said one customs official who agreed to meet after work to explain how the system operated.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he feared losing his job, said he had paid $5,000 to a customs administrator to secure his job, a low-level processing position, 10 years ago. It was a spectacularly good investment: He now makes up to $4,000 every month on top of his basic salary of $150. Similar positions now cost at least $15,000 and require political connections, he said.

Every official at the customs post in Torkham and in nearby Jalalabad, where customs fees are paid, is complicit in the scheme, he said — even the office cleaners. A day earlier, for example, 85 trucks filled with garments had passed through customs, costing the importer $1,400 per truck in bribes: $900 to the customs chief, $250 to the customs broker, and $250 to be divided among various customs officials who facilitated the clearance.

The official said he had chosen to speak out partly out of guilt, and partly because he had been inspired by Mr. Ghani’s election.

“This system is why I have clean clothes and good shoes,” he said, pointing to himself. “But I know it is wrong, and I want to stop it. This money belongs to the martyrs, the disabled and the widows. But if I raise my voice, I will lose my job.” 

Yet the system still loses more money than it gains. American aid officials estimate that Afghanistan loses half of its customs revenue to corruption, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction said in a report published in April.

 A serious customs overhaul would hurt the interests of major tribal or regional power brokers with links to Mr. Ghani or the country’s chief executive, Abdullah Abdullah. The main border post in the north is controlled by Atta Muhammad Noor, the governor of Balkh Province and a prominent supporter of Mr. Abdullah. In the south, the powerful police chief of Kandahar, Gen. Abdul Raziq, has a tight grip on border posts at Spin Boldak, with Pakistan, and Nimroz, with Iran. 
   
 “Corruption has become so interwoven with the political system in Afghanistan that it’s going to take years to undo,” one American official said. “And you can’t forget that Afghanistan is a treacherous place, where some actors are capable of anything.”   Read More at NYTimes