Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1
- 19)
THURSDAY 24 OCTOBER 2002
DR ABDULLAH
ABDULLAH AND
MR MOHAMMAD
HANIF ATMAR
Chairman
1. Ministers, thank you very, very much for
taking time to attend this Committee. As you know, the Committee
is undertaking an inquiry on the reconstruction of Afghanistan
and a number of us were fortunate enough to be in Afghanistan
last week. We were extremely grateful to the President and indeed
a whole number of ministers for giving us time whilst we were
there. Those of us who went came back with a whole number of impressions
about Afghanistan a better understanding of the destruction which
had been caused. For me a permanent memory will be going through
the Shomali valley and seeing not just every single house destroyed
but the fact that the Taliban had cut down every single fruit
tree, every mulberry tree, every walnut tree. One can rebuild
houses, but trees take many years to grow. On the other hand we
also saw the joy and enthusiasm in girls' schools in Kabul, girls'
education starting again, which was really quite fantastic. What
we should like to do is ask some questions about resources, about
security and about the development of the political process. We
are very conscious that you have to be away by eleven thirty,
so we shall keep our questions short. The World Bank said earlier
this year that as a base case Afghanistan required $10.2 billion
over five years, which is about twice that which has actually
been pledged. I notice that Senator Joe Biden, who chairs the
senatorial Foreign Affairs Committee in the United States of America,
observed a couple of weeks ago that to date total international
pledges of about $5 billion had fallen far short of that legacy
and well below the $20 billion plus which most experts believe
Afghanistan needs to build a safe sustaining future. All of us
have to do better faster. Is the money that the international
community pledged going to be enough for the reconstruction of
Afghanistan, particularly given the pressing humanitarian requirements
of more refugees coming back than had been anticipated and some
of the other pressures which have appeared. What are your thoughts
on the financial needs of Afghanistan over the next couple of
years?
(Dr Abdullah) Thank you; I appreciate this opportunity
to talk about the situation in Afghanistan in reconstruction.
The Tokyo conference took place a month after the establishment
of the interim government. We all worked out our proposals, our
expectations and our programmes in a hurry. At that time there
were different estimates by the World Bank and UNDP about the
need for assistance for Afghanistan. Now we see that the scale
of the problem is much more than we had anticipated at that time.
First of all, the money pledged for Afghanistan was not enough.
Before the conference there were talks about $25 billion, $30
billion, $20, $10 and we ended up with $4.5 billion. The composition
of this $4.5 billion was not defined. It is meant to be reconstruction
assistance. There is a humanitarian situation in Afghanistan which
has to be addressed as well. Now we have ended up with a situation
where 70 per cent of the money has gone to the humanitarian side
of it, which has to be addressed, but humanitarian assistance
is not reconstruction assistance. This is one issue. Some countries
which made pledges at the Tokyo conference had not defined the
fact that they meant credit as well as grants so later on we found
out that some countries' pledges were only 50 per cent grants.
The flow of money has been slow, the disbursement of money has
been slow. These are the issues related to that. Talking about
the reconstruction of Afghanistan, I shall give you one or two
examples and then I shall let my colleague, Minister Atmar, elaborate
further. The health situation; one of the priorities, out of which
I choose ophthalmology, which is my former profession. Four clinics
for the whole country, four clinics for a population of 22 million;
four eye clinics. This is the scale of the problem. Let us take
education. Three million school boys and girls returned; we were
expecting something like 1.5 million, so the number was double.
This is good news but on the other side, what about schools, what
about teachers, salaries for teachers, training of teachers, equipment
and so on? Refugees. We were expecting 500,000 refugees would
return this year; so far 1.6 million refugees have returned. This
is good. It is a sign of stability and the confidence of the people
in the situation. On the other side, who is going to take care
of this situation? 1.2 million internally displaced people have
returned. This is the scale of the problem. Pick up one area,
just a simple example, you will not be able to imagine the scale
of the problem. This is the amount of money pledged. I should
not judge every country as a stereotype as there have been countries
which have increased their pledges, countries like the United
States which has committed more than they had initially pledged
in Tokyo, but it has been otherwise as well with some donor countries.
(Mr Atmar) Thank you very much for this opportunity.
As my colleague explained, the number one issue is that as the
Government of Afghanistan, we definitely think that the pledges
made are not going to be sufficient. We have not undertaken a
comprehensive needs assessment. However, it seems that the World
Bank estimate between $10 and $20 billion is towards the upper
projection that they have made. A second point which needs to
be considered is a comparison with the four other recent post-conflict
countries. Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor and Rwanda. For example
in Bosnia per capita assistance over five years was around $328,
Kosovo $288, East Timor $175, Rwanda something similar. In Afghanistan
in 2000, based on pledges which have been made, the per capita
figure is $75; over five years it is roughly around $40. The first
issue one needs to look at is some kind of equity in terms of
international assistance pledges. The second point is that Afghanistan
is more destroyed by far than any of these countries we have talked
about. This situation has been even further exacerbated by the
return of 1.8 million people and we are expecting that this number
will rise up to two million by the end of this year. 4.21 November
20021 November 2002 million people are estimated to be facing
severe food shortages during this winter. The next point I should
like to make, as my colleague said, is the imbalance between the
humanitarian and reconstruction assistance. The problem with the
humanitarian assistance, as we have always argued is that it addresses
the symptoms of the problem rather than the causes. For instance,
one quarter of the entire assistance which has come to Afghanistan
this year is food aid and food aid is only postponing death rather
than strengthening lives and livelihoods. Much of that has also
gone to refugee reintegration and assistance. What we are advocating
is that there needs to be a proper balance. Conventional reconstruction
like reconstruction of the energy sector, transport, etcetera,
has not received adequate funding at all. In a way that actually
fails to address the root causes of the humanitarian situation
in the country. A third point we should like to highlight is that
we should not take it for granted that the resources must come
to Afghanistan which would help the political, humanitarian, human
rights and development project, which is what we call the state
building project in that country. From any perspective, the state
building project is central for us to all our objectives. Over
90 per cent of the resources have gone through non-state entities
and this will be counter-productive to the state building project.
What we are advocating is that the Afghanistan Government has
taken all the necessary steps to ensure accountability, transparency
and efficiency by recruiting reputable international firms for
financial management, audit and procurement, yet still there is
a kind of reluctance to consider channelling resources through
the national development budget. This is not helpful in terms
of the capacity building of the government and the government's
ability to ensure equity in resource distribution across the country
through a unified policy.
2. Those of us who were in Kabul last week were
very impressed by the discussions we had with the Ministry of
Finance. What that flagged up to us was that the lion's share
of the development aid is actually going through UN organisations
rather than to the Government of Afghanistan. It seemed to us
that the international community had allowed the Government of
Afghanistan, I think it was supposedly $460 million this year—I
have not done the arithmetic but I suspect that is about the equivalent
of the budget of Birmingham City Council each year—so it
is not very much. I think I am right in saying that of this $460
million there is going to be a $90 million shortfall and that
donors have so far only provided $130 million directly to the
transitional administration. So even of the comparatively small
amount the international community were going to give to the Government
of Afghanistan, not all of it has actually arrived. I think everyone
will assume that the Government of Afghanistan is running the
country and has the wherewithal to run the country. Could you
just explain to the Committee a little about what it is like to
be running a government where effectively you have such limited
financial resources and therefore something of the tensions which
are arising between you and the UN institutions, just simple things
like the ability to recruit staff. It struck us that quite a lot
of the UN institutions and agencies were clearly able to pay sizeably
larger salaries for local staff than government departments were.
(Dr Abdullah) For quite some time there has been this
issue of lack of capacity in part of the government. That was
an excuse not to deal through the government. By presenting the
national development framework to the implementation group just
recently, the government proved that it has the capacity, but
what is also needed as well is that part of the reconstruction
assistance should have gone and should go to institutional capacity
building in the government. In a few years' time the money will
be gone, humanitarian assistance will be by NGOs and the government
will be in the same position as today. This government will not
have the capacity itself to utilise the potential which exists
in the country for future development. This government will not
be able to stand on its own feet, though we have national resources,
a very good location indeed for transit, a good climate and hard-working
people and so on and a political process which is democratic.
What is it like not to know about resources and still be in a
position of responsibility, not as the continuation of another
government, but as a government which has started by becoming
a government, by creating a government on the scars of 20 years
of war, starting from below zero. One example from the Ministry
of Reconstruction, which is responsible for the reconstruction
of Afghanistan. The minister had to start by finding a building,
then recruiting a few people, then what about office facilities
and so on? This is how things start. You can imagine the problems
with lack of resources. One big danger, one big risk which this
government is facing is that it is losing credibility among the
people. Because of the Bonn agreement, of the Tokyo conference,
especially after the Loya Jirga, the expectations of our people
were raised to a high level. They expected everything would start,
especially after the Loya Jirga . Then we ran out of excuses for
the people, things are coming, things are in the pipeline, commitments
are there and so on. How long can one maintain this situation
while we are expected to build a state, to integrate the government
in different parts of the country, to combat drugs, to combat
illegal activities, to work out the constitution, to deliver in
every aspect of life. I cannot explain it.
(Mr Atmar) Absolutely. Quickly to reinforce what the
Minister has said, the first issue is that the government's legitimacy
is at stake. Any government has both a national and international
obligation to deliver on its commitment, its commitments to the
international community and to the Afghans at large. A government
without the basic operating budget and without a development budget
will not be able to deliver on any of its commitments. The absence
of an accountable government in Afghanistan has been the key reason
for human rights abuses in that country, the growth of terrorism,
drugs and the rest. The second point is that we should not take
it for granted that multilateral and bilateral relationships with
non-state entities in Afghanistan would actually deliver on the
international community's promise for reconstruction and rebuilding
of Afghanistan. The key problem with that is that they will never
have a national vision, given the nature of operations and scope
of operations. At the end of the day you need a government to
formulate a national vision, policies and strategies and for policies,
the key instrument is actually a national budget. That national
budget has been developed by the government and the issues of
concern to the donor community have largely been addressed. So
the issue now is that we are keen to ask other donors to follow
the example of DFID, which has taken a number of good steps towards
that by contributing to the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund.
Finally, the reform process we should like to undertake is not
about building a Soviet-type state in Afghanistan; we need an
effective and small state which is accountable and efficient and
for the reform agenda we have the resource issue is definitely
a key issue.
Ann Clwyd
3. May I say I was one of the three members
who visited Afghanistan and it was a great experience, particularly
to see the resilience and determination of the Afghan people to
rebuild their country? What became extremely apparent to us on
our first day was the insecurity which exists within the country.
Our aircraft was diverted from Kabul airport to Baghram because
of a perceived threat of a rocket attack. We also heard from many
people to whom we talked about their concerns over security, the
fact that the President was almost assassinated last month. It
was put very sharply by his national security adviser when he
said to us that it was a bullet away from a civil war. Clearly
security is a prime issue in order to attract donors into the
country and so on. I wondered how important you thought it was
to expand the international security force (ISAF) outside Kabul
itself. There are about 5,000 ISAF forces and the estimate given
to us was that at least 18,000 troops are needed to ensure that
stability. Is that your feeling?
(Dr Abdullah) First of all the issue of security.
Security remains our main priority. On the other side, we do not
want this to become a chicken and egg situation: there is no security,
so there is no assistance because there is no security. Terrorists
are there in Afghanistan as well as in the region. They will take
every opportunity to destabilise the situation. As far as the
issue of the airport is concerned, I was in the middle of a meeting
of the implementation group when I received a note from the head
of ISAF saying we should close down the airport that night for
another three or four days because of a threat of rocket attacks.
It was not my feeling that we should have gone down that route.
If the terrorists realise they can shut down the airport, that
with every threat one way or another they can cause this closure,
then we shall all be permanently shut. That was an extra extra
precaution taken. A story of a similar episode when we were travelling
back from our trip to the Gulf States to Kabul our plane was kept
in the air on advice as a security precaution for an extra hour.
I was with President Karzai on our plane and I told the President
that when we land we should tell these people that keeping us
one more hour in the air was a greater potential risk than any
other likelihood. The environment is not secure as such and unfortunately
we have to deal with it as a process which will take time, but
the security situation has improved. Out of a population of 22
million one has to expect one, two, ten terrorists to be hanging
around waiting for an opportunity. I came from Washington this
morning and there I was in the best place to explain how difficult
security is. You will all have heard about this case of the sniper.
Security will be restored in a process, the process will include
the creation of a national army, a national police force, demobilisation
programme. When I say "demobilisation programme" it
is demobilisation of 700,000 armed people. This is a big job.
There will be an anti-narcotic programme, the revival of the judiciary
system and so on and so forth as well as reconstruction programmes,
development improvement, development programmes. Then what about
the foreign element in the security situation and the threat from
elements in our neighbouring countries. The expansion of ISAF
was a preference and still is a preference. I do not know how
realistic it is to expect ISAF to be expanded because it involves
lots of factors. At the same time another alternative could be
the expansion of coalition forces to some extent, coalition forces
which are already there. It will not add to the numbers a great
deal. If ISAF is not achievable we have to find ways in which
things could be done.
4. Have you made any commitments yet to expanding
the forces?
(Dr Abdullah) No, not commitment. Discussions on this
issue have started for the first time in different capitals and
I am aware of that.
5. Does Afghanistan really need a national army,
and why?
(Dr Abdullah) Definitely. It is the main element of
integration in preserving sovereignty in the role of the government
and the role of law in the country. We have different armies at
this stage. These different armies are the main source of insecurity
for the people of Afghanistan, not al-Qaeda. The threat from al-Qaeda
comes from time to time; it will be there, as I mentioned. In
different regions of Afghanistan different people are in charge
of the armies. These armies should be dissolved, a part of them
should be integrated into the national army and that situation
should come to an end. This is the obstacle for development and
for state building. Yes, we do need a national army, a national
police force and other national security institutions.
6. Can the warlords be controlled and the militias
disbanded and disarmed?
(Dr Abdullah) It will not happen overnight. The process
has started, the Loya Jirga itself, where the people and representatives
of the people gathered and voted and they expressed their views
about the rule of the central government and integration of the
central government in different parts of the country. All this
has helped, but once again it depends on the capacity of the government
to deliver. We cannot just ask the people to disarm; that will
not happen. Efforts on the creation of a national army should
be parallel to the efforts in the demobilisation programme, as
well as activities to enhance the role of the grassroot population.
On the warlords and regional leaders, those who are considered
to be part of the problem should be dealt with as part of the
problem. Those who could be part of the solution could be made
part of the reform programme and that is doable.
7. Is there not some attempt to denigrate the
President—I think you touched on it earlier—particularly
by some of the warlords who can see themselves moving into a more
important position? For the credibility of the President, is it
not essential that he is seen as more than Mayor of Kabul, a term
we heard, and that he needs projects which he can be identified
with, certainly in his own home area?
(Dr Abdullah) Definitely.
(Mr Atmar) Absolutely. One extremely important point
for the state building project is to reconstruct the reciprocity
between the peripheries, provinces, the remote areas and Kabul,
the capital. That reciprocity through establishment of security,
reconstruction and development aid budgets, will have to be demonstrated.
Again, credibility and legitimacy of the state largely depends
on that. The second point that the Minister highlighted was the
creation of the national army which will work both as an incentive
and disincentive to the privatised armies. Incentive to be retrained
and be part of the security establishment, but with a new code
of conduct, particularly when it comes to human rights. Disincentive
in that of course a warlord is as much part of the political agenda
as the economic one. One really needs to pay attention to the
fact that alternative livelihoods will be extremely important
in terms of ensuring sustainable security in Afghanistan.
8. I think you are probably referring to opium.
As long as the warlords have access to opium and the trade that
brings, they are going to remain in a powerful position as people
have in other countries when they have had access to diamonds,
for example.
(Mr Atmar) Actually to both. First, poppy is one of
the key elements of the war economy in the country and the government
is determined to reverse that unhelpful situation. An alternative
livelihood, not only for the poppy growing communities but also
for the professional soldiers who have had nothing but this option
to serve a commander. The issue of a sustainable alternative is
increasingly important.
(Dr Abdullah) When it comes to the revenues, it is
not just the revenue from the opium, it is also tax collection
from the border crossing points and so on. Those regional leaders
rely on those taxes and they pay their own private armies through
that so the whole situation is all interactive. If we do not move
in one section we cannot move in all the others. The problem for
this government is to deal with every aspect of it. When a new
government is elected here, either it has to deal with many issues
such as the NHS or something else, the priorities, look at the
priorities over that. Whatever you mention will be a priority
and a huge priority and a challenging priority.
Mr Khabr
9. What has been the impact of the election
in Pakistan? The outcome of it has been the emergence of fundamentalist
forces there and that is on the border with your country. I do
not know what the situation is going to be as far as security
is concerned. Is it going to be as fragile as it has been? What
is the relationship between your government and the Government
of Pakistan as far as the security situation in the North West
Frontier (NWF) area is concerned?
(Dr Abdullah) Relations between Afghanistan and the
Islamic Republic of Pakistan have improved since the creation
of the interim government, the Bonn agreement and afterwards.
We appreciate the position of President Musharraf and the campaign
against terror as a coalition but recent developments were not
fundamentalists. Those people who have been elected in those provinces
and will be the authorities in the North West Frontier and Baluchistan
are the mentors of the Taliban. These are the mentors of the Taliban,
they are of the same mind, the same ideology, the same agenda.
It is a cause of concern for us. We hope that President Musharraf
will be able to deal with this issue because it is an issue for
the stability of Pakistan as well as our collective interest in
the stability of Afghanistan and the whole region. It is a major
cause of concern. I hope this will not be considered as interference
in another country's affairs, which we hardly do: Afghanistan
was interfered with by other countries, by its neighbours. Afghanistan
has never been the cause of a problem. The Taliban were an imposed
agenda. With those people in power in the North West Frontier
they cannot be elements in any healthy process. They have announced
their agenda and that they want the Taliban to return. From now
on al-Qaeda leaders and Taliban leaders will be in safe hands
in those areas. That is rubbish and they can incite violence in
Afghanistan, they can raise the morale of the Taliban who are
in Afghanistan or in the region. It will have negative impacts
unfortunately. We hope that we will be able to deal with this
issue together with the Government of Pakistan, but it is a major
concern.
Mr Colman
10. May I return to an area which the Chairman
referred to, which is the capacity of the Afghan Government to
govern? One of the policy briefs we have received is from Care
International and they say their key finding is that the Afghan
authorities have minimal strategic control over the disbursement
of aid funds for reconstruction and the recommendation is that
donors should build the capacity of the Afghan authorities to
assume strategic leadership for the country's reconstruction.
How do you believe those capacity needs should be determined and
what do you believe are the fundamental capacity needs? Should
we not go significantly beyond provision of training and IT or
English language which is where they seem to be stuck at the moment?
(Dr Abdullah) Yes, in my initial remarks I mentioned
that institutional capacity building is one of the needs of the
reconstruction of Afghanistan. This should have started in the
early days of the formation of the government. It is not just
IT and English language, it is much more than that. The bureaucracy
has suffered in the past 23 years, as every other aspect of life.
The Minister mentioned the need for a change in it. That takes
all sorts of capacity, administrative, managerial capacity to
propose and create projects and the training of civil servants
and other aspects of that. My point is that a significant amount
of the reconstruction assistance should be allocated for that
purpose because fortunately Afghanistan has the potential, the
resources to stand on its own feet for quite some time to come,
but this has not been done so far.
11. Have the Afghan people in the diaspora returned,
many of whom have skills to be in the ministries and to deliver
the policies that the politicians have decided and worked on with
the community? Have they come back? The Chair again was talking
about the problem of wages. What is the plan and how are you going
to man the need for civil servants in the ministries?
(Dr Abdullah) Some of the people from the diaspora
outside Afghanistan, from the United States, from Europe especially,
have returned; a good number of people have returned to the country
and the different ministries are making use of this opportunity.
It is a great opportunity because they have learned skills outside
and they know the country and they adapt much faster than foreigners
in the situation, the language and the whole thing, but there
as well is the issue of the salaries, the accommodation, all these
other related issues which make it a challenge. There are people
who have volunteered their services, but how long could one expect
people who are paid a decent amount of salary outside in other
institutions and so on to come to the country? A few months of
voluntary service, but what else as a means of gaining a living?
This is one of the areas to focus on. We have these sorts of multi-dimensional
problems. People will be encouraged to return home. This is one
issue. Then while they are returning, they are contributing to
the reconstruction of their own country. They can help the others,
they can train people, so there is multi-dimensional benefit from
it but there again we need capacity.
12. How are you dealing with what to the perception
outside is the significant overlap between the ministries, between
the 32 ministries? How will you co-ordinate the government activity?
(Dr Abdullah) We did have this problem at the beginning;
it was a huge problem at the beginning. If I had to meet the Minister
for Rural Development, which at that time was another gentleman,
I had to take a car and go to the ministry because there was no
means of communication to find out whether the minister was there
or not. Of course we have weekly cabinet meetings and extraordinary
cabinet meetings whenever necessary. There are a few venues for
co-ordination. For example the High Commission for Investment,
the Afghanistan Assistance Co-ordination Authority. These are
committees or organisations where certain ministers gather in
addition to the cabinet meetings. The National Security Council
deals with national security related issues, the National Defence
Council is a place where regional leaders are represented as well
as central government.
13. But do you have the machinery of government
institutions which bring together the 32 ministries?
(Dr Abdullah) Sure, but at the beginning, for example,
what the Ministry of Planning would do was not defined, what the
Ministry for Reconstruction would do. While we have a Ministry
of Planning and a Ministry for Reconstruction, nevertheless a
political agreement was born that it had to accommodate different
people, it had to have representatives of different people. This
sort of administrative interest was not taken into account. Bonn
created a large government of 32 ministries which we had no choice
but to form.
(Mr Atmar) In terms of co-ordination and minimising
overlaps, the last effort was the creation of a board for the
Afghan Assistance Co-ordination Authority (AACA) and the four
ministers, finance, planning, reconstruction and foreign affairs,
are going to be members of that board. For that reason an institutional
arrangement has actually been made to minimise overlapping agendas.
The second thing is the development of a national development
framework and national development budget which are instruments
not only for implementation of government policies but also institutional
labour divisions to be put in place. I should slightly disagree
with Care's viewpoint that there is no strategic capacity there.
Look at the remarkable performance of the government, particularly
in developing the two documents mentioned. No other government
in such a short period of time has delivered on so many things.
Our proposal for capacity development of the government institutions
includes things like, first, avoid parallel structures. We will
never have a government revived institution if there is a parallel
within the UN system which is receiving assistance from outside
and there is no added value apart from delivery of assistance.
So that is issue number one. Issue number two is the example of
DFID in terms of technical assistance for capacity development
with the Ministry of Finance, with the Ministry of Rural Development
and Reconstruction and with the central bank. With little technical
assistance this government has achieved quite a lot. However,
the issue is the issue of institutional reconstruction in the
country as well, which takes a lot more than just technical assistance.
Again I would refer to the chicken and egg situation which the
Minister mentioned at the beginning. Unless we have resources,
unless we have water in the pipes, we will not know where the
leakages are in the pipes, so that is the issue to be considered.
14. May I ask how you get ownership of, say,
the national development framework? You are saying that you are
in fact setting your own priorities through that development framework,
but how do you get ownership from the Afghan people to that?
(Mr Atmar) The government key principles are that
reconstruction will not be a government driven effort. It will
be a people owned and driven effort in the country. One of the
six programmes which we have prioritised for donors to consider
is a national solidarity programme which would allow communities
to set their own reconstruction and development agenda and the
government to provide strategic services, NGOs and the private
sector to be the implementing partners of the government. The
unity which the cabinet demonstrated during the implementation
group meeting in October was remarkable. All donors have consensus
in terms of saying that the government demonstrated a unique unity,
which again is a remarkable demonstration of the fact that the
cabinet is representing the view of all Afghans across the country.
Mr Barrett
15. You mentioned earlier on that getting that
balance right between humanitarian aid and reconstruction was
one of the key elements in developing the country. What dialogue
is taking place to make sure that balance is right? Is the capacity
to govern in fact being restricted by the fact that there are
inflated salaries or inflated office costs within Kabul? I read
that the office rent in Kabul was as expensive as Manhattan. Is
dialogue taking place to allow the government to develop its own
capacity to govern or is there a tension there with the donors?
(Dr Abdullah) Before coming to your point, on the
Afghan ownership of the national development framework, it is
very much an Afghan owned framework. The donor community has been
invited to fill in the areas which we have identified as our priorities
in our national development framework. Talking to the World Bank
yesterday, I was told that in no other case had the recipient
come forward with such a programme nationally owned whilst asking
for partnership from the donors. It has always been vice-versa,
always supply driven assistance to the recipients in other cases.
This is an area which has already affected our capacity to deliver
the promises which we have made to our people or the expectations
of our people as far as the developments in the country are concerned.
Let us talk about salaries. When we say that we have not paid
salaries for two months, three months, what is the amount of salary
which we are paying to the people? I can clarify this with an
example. If the people in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have
to be fed with lunch in the ministry, then the amount of money
which they will end up receiving at the end of the month will
be something $6 per month, all civil servants. If they are not
fed then that amount will rise to something like $30 a month if
they just remain and work until the evening. That applies to all
civil servants. When we talk about security, the police force
in Kabul is responsible for security. If you compare the security
in Kabul, in Afghanistan, with our neighbouring countries, it
is perhaps better than most of our neighbouring countries. The
police force is not being paid and how to feed them once or twice
a day is the problem. This capacity is lacking in every area you
can touch on and this has restricted our capability. While we
have trained people, skilled people, coming from outside, people
who trained in the past, they do need refresher courses. Take
the Ministry of Mines and Industry, we have dozens of PhDs, without
exaggeration over 300 people with masters degrees, who are in
the same situation: their salaries are the same. In most cases
they need a refresher course for a period of time to enable them
to accommodate to the new circumstances and to the new situation.
That capacity does not exist there and that is not being considered
in the reconstruction assistance.
(Mr Atmar) In terms of the right balance between humanitarian
and reconstruction, there is definitely that dialogue. Currently
we are engaging with the donors and WFP on the issue of how much
food aid and how much cash for work. Our preferred instrument
is cash for work. Food aid will not address the causes of the
poverty of our people. Therefore we should like to engage constructively
with the donors and explore reconstruction aid to strengthen the
cash-starved economy of our country. The second issue is the civil
service and the reform agenda which we have. We have promised
the donors that in February we shall come up with a concrete strategy
and plan for the reform of the civil service. Elements of that
will include social policy; we cannot just lay off people for
whom the civil service has become a safety net. So we shall look
at a social support package, plus training, which would enable
them to increase the marketability of their skills to be recruited
by the private sector and other state run organisations. Again,
any reform agenda requires resources, so the issue now for us
is that we are quite determined to address this situation. We
really need to emphasise the need for an adequate level of understanding
on the part of our donors.
Chris McCafferty
16. Capacity of government to deliver also depends
on the development of a political process, opportunities for the
government's political priorities to be implemented. As one of
the members of this Committee who was in Afghanistan last week,
I am aware that the President appointed a number of commissions
to develop those priorities. We were fortunate to be able to meet
the commissioner for human rights and we were hoping to see her
today, but unfortunately I understand she is not here because
she missed her plane. We listened to some of her concerns and
one of her main difficulties seemed to be that she perceived a
lack of authority in her relations with other ministries, particularly
the Ministry of Justice. I wondered whether you could tell us
how you see the relationship between the commissions and the ministries
they relate to, given that one of those commissions is a constitutional
commission and presumably they have the remit for developing the
new constitution and that is quite a short time frame. I think
they are supposed to report to the Loya Jirga in December 2003,
which would be within the Bonn agreed time frame. Given the difficulties
that the human rights commissioner seemed to have, do you perceive
a problem in those relationships between commissions and ministries?
(Dr Abdullah) There are two issues. One is the institutional
type of relations between these commissions and government ministries.
The other one is the type of relations which the person in this
role would have to build. Whatever the rules in the codes of conduct,
those will be there, but the person in that job should find ways
and means to deal with these issues on a personal basis. I am
sure that this is doable and we have the experience. I shall meet
Dr Sima Samar when I return. She is shy of dealing with these
issues. Sometimes we think that since this commission is there
and the rules are there, everything must be all right but it does
not happen. We have to deal with each other, we have to work with
each other, we have to work on the common causes, objectives of
the government which are mainly based on the Bonn agreement. This
is another way of dealing with this issue and one has to focus
on the first part of it which I mentioned, which is institutional
types of actions.
(Mr Atmar) Absolutely. The first point is that the
government is strongly committed to the independence of these
commissions, therefore I resigned from my membership of the Human
Rights Commission because I became a government minister; secondly,
to whatever support we can strategically provide to these commissions
in order for them to meet their objectives. At the moment my ministry
is supporting the Human Rights Commission in a variety of ways
and vice-versa. We should like to develop this relationship with
them for mainstreaming the human rights agenda within the work
this ministry is supposed to be doing. The commission is in its
infancy, it has a long way to go and our support will have to
be provided in a timely manner to foster that growth.
(Dr Abdullah) For example, I personally, in my capacity
as Minister for Foreign Affairs, in my capacity as a member of
the National Security Council, can help that commission, but I
have not been approached. The first day when Dr Sima Samar sat
by my side in the cabinet I said to her that she was new to the
situation, I had been in the resistance against the Taliban and
I could do things and if she wanted me to help her in the running
of her ministry—at that time it was the Ministry for Women's
Affairs—I would see what I could do. My advice to the head
of the commission and other commissions would be to take a proactive
role and make things work and let us know. I do not know what
the problems are for that commission.
17. So you feel that the relationship between
ministries and commission is still under development and that
both sides need to work very hard on this.
(Dr Abdullah) Yes; yes. The head of every commission
has to take action. One cannot solve everything sitting in a commission,
that is self evident, and we have to work together and see how
we can help each other.
18. May I move on to the Constitutional Commission
and their remit to help produce a draft constitution in order
to hold elections in December 2003? Do you feel this is a realistic
time frame? Can it be done?
(Dr Abdullah) I am sort of wary of that date; this
might not be a realistic time frame. We have lived with all the
other commitments and timetables in the Bonn agreement and we
hope we shall be able to meet this one. Personally, looking at
the situation and the developments and the slow pace of developments
... That time frame was considered on the understanding that security
would improve, development activities would start, integration
of the government in different parts of the country would take
place and at the same time we would keep to the time frame.
19. Are you saying that you think this time
frame is unrealistic because of the other things we have talked
about this morning? All governments like to hold elections when
they feel they can be won and the Afghani Government would be
no different to any other if that was the thinking. That is a
political decision. Are you saying that it will not be an appropriate
time to hold elections because the people are becoming disenchanted
because of lack of donor funding, because transitional work, reconstruction,
is taking place at a much slower pace than you had hoped for and
there is not as much funding there as is needed? That when December
2003 comes the government will not be able to go to elections
because it may be perceived not to have delivered to the people's
expectation.
(Dr Abdullah) No, not as a political consideration
because this government was not able to deliver so it should postpone
the elections. No. In practical terms we need a secure environment,
we need communication systems, we need government to be integrated
in the different areas in order to be able to work with the people
and lots of other factors and elements. If these elements are
not provided because that was part of the package then this is
my personal view in that regard. The government is committed to
make that possible within that time but personally when I look
around and see in all other fields the things which are required,
not as a political decision, but pragmatically.
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