The
Afghan ministry set up to tackle the drugs trade
is facing a staffing crisis after the UK, on the
instructions of the Kabul government, withdrew
funding for salaries. The best-educated workers
at the fledgling ministry of counter-narcotics,
which is intended to play a key role in reducing
the country's poppy crop, have been looking for
other jobs after pay for senior staff dropped
from $1,500 ( =801,011, UKP762 ) to $200 a month.
The ministry said 30 senior workers had left since
November when pay was cut. One official, a senior
aide to counter-narcotics minister General Khodaidad,
said he could no longer afford the rent on his
Kabul flat and was trying to find an information
technology job in one of the NGOs in Kabul, which
pay far more than government jobs. Other staff
members claim to have received no pay since November.
Britain, "lead sponsor" of anti-drugs
efforts in Afghanistan, withdrew its subsidy as
part of a process designed to bring pay into line
with other ministries. Gen Khodaidad said the
move would "obviously affect the work of
the ministry" and called for greater international
funds to be made available. An official at the
British embassy in Kabul accepted that the changes
had created difficulties for the ministry but
said the UK was committed to supporting Kabul's
efforts to create a sustainable public pay structure.
The reform process, which was intended to increase
public sector pay overall and reduce government
corruption, has proceeded so slowly that senior
staff have suffered big pay cuts. Speaking in
Kapisa province, Gen Khodaidad said Afghanistan's
efforts to reduce opium and heroin production
were also hampered by the web of ministries and
agencies involved in tackling the issue. The country's
narcotics economy has grown in strength in the
six years since the overthrow of the Taliban regime,
which had successfully banned poppy cultivation
in 2000. Last year Afghanistan produced its biggest
harvest, with output up 17 per cent on 2006. It
has also moved into the lucrative business of
refining raw opium into heroin inside its own
borders. This week the International Monetary
Fund said poppy production was worth $1bn to farmers.
The value to the drug refiners and traffickers
is far greater. Counter-narcotics ministry officials
said better news was expected this year, with
more provinces set to be declared "poppy
free".
However, they said choking cultivation in the
province of Helmand, where the Taliban insurgency
is at its most violent and production is at its
highest, would be hard.
|