Afghan President Hamid Karzai earns just $525 a month, has less than $20,000 in the bank and owns no land or property, according to a declaration of his assets on Sunday by an anti-graft body.
Although his modest remuneration is five times the national average, it contrasts sharply with salaries of leaders in the West, where US President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron rake in around $400,000 a year. Mr Karzai’s assets were published by the High Office for Oversight and anti-Corruption Commission as part of a decree aimed at providing greater transparency among officials.
Although the Taliban insurgency remains the greatest threat to Afghanistan’s stability, graft at almost every level of society remains a major complaint of ordinary Afghans and anyone doing business with the country.
The anti-graft body is registering the assets of at least 2,000 officials — including ministers, members of Parliament, senior military and police officers and provincial leaders — and will start publishing them this week.
“This covers assets held by officials, their wives and children below the age of 18,” Mohammed Yasin Usmani, the commission’s chief, told Reuters on Sunday. Any official found to have withheld information risked prosecution, he said.
Senior current and former Afghan officials — including two of Mr Karzai’s deputies — are believed to own buildings and assets worth tens of millions of dollars — at home and abroad. Some have also been involved in major contracts awarded by foreign forces, and the police has been questioning 17 current and ex-ministers on suspicions of graft.
While Mr Karzai has acknowledged a corruption problem, he says it is exaggerated by Western media and insists the biggest source of graft is poor oversight of billions of dollars in aid contracts that dwarf Afghanistan’s budget.