Graft Concerns Endanger Bid to Curb Drugs Trade

The governor of Helmand province, Gulab Mangal, has had much to be proud of in his 20 months as head of one of the most lawless provinces in Afghanistan.



Several districts have been stabilised by the presence of United States forces, after years when a total Taleban takeover seemed all but certain. Some measure of hope is returning to residents and, according to the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, UNODC, poppy cultivation is down by more than one third this year, the most significant achievement of all.



Helmand alone is the world’s largest producer of opium poppy, providing close to half of the global supply of heroin. Mangal’s Food Zone programme, which distributes wheat seed and fertiliser to farmers who agree not to plant poppy, has helped to slash that production.



Over the past few months, however, the Food Zone programme has been mired in scandal. Top advisers and administrators have been accused of corruption, and dozens are now languishing in Helmand’s prisons.



“We have arrested 90 people on corruption charges,” Mangal told IWPR. “We are building a case against them. They are all in jail now.”



Those in jail are accused of taking kickbacks amounting to hundreds of thousands of US dollars from potential contractors.



The programme is funded by the British-led Provincial Reconstruction Team, PRT, in Helmand, which provided close to 13 million dollars for the project last year.



One of the alleged mechanisms for diverting funds was a scheme whereby inferior wheat was bought and given out as if it were top quality, said Abdulahad Helmandwal, a tribal leader from Helmand’s Nad Ali district, who claims to have provided much of the evidence of the alleged scandal to the governor and the security authorities.



The reported scam was confirmed by a staff member in the local department of agriculture, who spoke on condition of anonymity.



“[An official] told us to buy whatever kind of wheat we could find,” said the government employee. “He told us not to bother about getting roshan (the best quality) seed; that we would be able to make money.



“The PRT gave us 570 dollars per tonne to buy wheat, but on [his] order we bought wheat for 330 dollars per tonne. We bought 4,000 tonnes. At least 80 per cent of the wheat was poor quality. They mixed chemicals with it so that it looked like roshan wheat, but the farmers could tell. The yield is less than half of what it would be for good wheat.”



According to Helmandwal, the question of poor quality wheat had been raised on numerous occasions.



“What is this?” Hajji Hayatullah, a farmer from Greshk district, told IWPR. “Does the government think it can get support by providing such poor quality wheat? Tell the governor this project is not for us.”



Deputy governor Abdul Satar Mirzakwal is one of the most senior official to be implicated in the alleged scandal, although he is not under arrest. Sources inside the local department of rural rehabilitation and development, who spoke on condition of anonymity, named Mirzakwal and other officials as pocketing money from many projects, including the Food Zone programme.



Mirzakwal denies any wrongdoing, and claims that the entire case is politically motivated.



“A number of people, like Helmandwal, who do not want to see Helmand removed from the list of drug mafia states, want the Food Zone programme to fail,” he said, claiming that they are being encouraged to make such claims by powerful figures with an interest in the heroin trade. “If this programme is a success there will be no more drug smuggling in Helmand.”



Others in the province have also attacked Helmandwal, saying that his aim was to undermine the governor. “Helmandwal is trying to sabotage the Food Zone programme,” said Shamulzi, a member of the council in Nad Ali.



Helmandwal angrily denies the charge. “I am not corrupt,” he told a recent news conference. “I work for the people of Helmand. I regret that the governor is not arresting all of his advisers who are involved in this project, and I regret that we are fighting each other. And I am sorry that people from the United Kingdom, on the other side of the world, are funding seeds and fertiliser for the people of Helmand. Instead of thanking them, we are robbing them.”



In the wake of alleged scandal, some local officials have expressed concerned over donors’ willingness to continue funding the Food Zone programme.



A PRT spokesman would not comment on funding for 2010/11, but said, “We are aware of the problem of corruption, but we consider it a good sign that these allegations are being tackled by the governor.”



The rumours of poor-quality wheat had reached the PRT, he said, but the project management staff are convinced that the wheat was of sufficient quality to yield a good harvest.



Afghanistan had a bumper wheat crop this year, due in part to sowing encouraged by the high price of wheat on the world market. Poppy prices are at a record low; according to several sources, a kilogramme of raw opium now fetches only about 35 dollars, compared with 140 dollars three years ago. All of this has contributed to the success of the Food Zone programme, but there is no guarantee that the trends will continue.



“It is difficult to say how much this programme has contributed to the reduction in poppy,” the PRT spokesman said. “But this is about more than agriculture and poppy. It is about showing the face of the government in the districts.”



Indeed, many farmers have been extremely happy with the Food Zone programme.



“I don’t care what has happened; this is a very good programme,” said Noor Mohammad Aka, from Nad Ali. “I got my share. Six sacks of fertiliser, two sacks of wheat, and I had to pay only 700 afghani for it all (14 dollars). If I go to the market I have to pay 700 afghani just for one bag of fertiliser. I thank the government, and I am not going to grow poppy again.”



Sher Afzal, a farmer in Nawa district, is also satisfied, “I have leased out my land, but they gave me eight sacks of wheat and fertiliser. I may sell the wheat to the man who is working on my land. God save the governor, who helped us a lot. Such programmes convince the people that the government wants to help them.”



Some, however, claim to have been left out of the programme.



“I was not included in the list for distribution,” Ahmad Jan, a farmer in Chanjir district, said. “We do not want a handful of people to sit around and register the names they like and distribute the assistance among themselves.”



Mangal has said that measures will be taken to ensure the transparency of the Food Zone programme. He has also sworn that anyone who tries to subvert the process will be punished.



“There will be no amnesty or impunity,” he said. “I will send them all to jail.”



However, a member of the local council in Nawa district was somewhat sceptical.



“The governor is an honest man, but we cannot accept his statement 100 per cent,” he said. “There is a lot of corruption in this process.”



For the most part, though, the governor has emerged a hero from the scandal.



“We will never forget this heroic action of Gulab Mangal, putting corrupt department heads in jail,” said Khal Ahmad, a resident of Lashkar Gah. “We are supporting him, and we want him in Helmand forever.”



Aziz Ahmad Tassal and Mohammad Ilyas Dayee are IWPR reporters in Helmand.