Congratulations to Ateeq Nosher on his appointment to serve in President Ghani’s government. I hope that in that capacity he can help bring justice to Afghanistan in the Kabulbank scandal. I was glad to see that President Ghani reopened the convictions by President Karzi’s Special Tribunal related to Kabulbank. Its two founders and the perpetrators of one of the biggest financial frauds ever to occur around the world, Sherkhan Farnood and Khalilullah Ferozi, were convicted of their crime but received a light sentence and never actually went to prison. Nine employees of Da Afghanistan Bank, including its governor at the time, Abdul Fitrat, the receiver of Kabulbank appointed by DAB, Masood Khan Moosa Ghazi, and DAB’s current Auditor General, Muhammad Qaseem Rahimi, were also convicted for something like their failure to detect and prevent the Kabulbank crimes. These convictions were either a misunderstanding by the Special Tribunal of the nature of the central bank’s role as the supervisor of Kabulbank or deliberate harassment of DAB by the Tribunal. In short, the Special Tribunal was either ignorant of the issues it ruled on or it was corrupt. An excellent report on this scandal by the INDEPENDENT JOINT ANTI-CORRUPTION MONITORING AND EVALUATION COMMITTEE was published in November 2012: REPORT OF THE PUBLIC INQUIRY INTO THE KABUL BANK CRISIS. Sherkhan Farnood and Khalilullah Feroz should go to jail for their terrible crimes and the staff of DAB should be cleared of any crimes as they are properly protected by the DAB Law for actions taken in good faith in their conduct of their duties. I was hopeful that justice would finally be done in this matter under Afghanistan’s new President. I was shocked to learn that instead, Qaseem and the other DAB employees wrongly convicted were arrested a few days ago as part of the retrial. Such procedures are unknown elsewhere. Some Afghan newspapers even reported their arrest as being part of the Kabulbank embezzlement. Such misreporting is itself a terrible slander. In his new position Ateeq is in a position to help correct these terrible injustices. Afghanistan has a badly needed opportunity to begin reversing its terrible corruption. But at this point it is starting off badly.
Posted on: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 11:23:20 +0000
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