UN Reports on Afghanistan Corruption

A new UN survery has shown that corruption is widespread in Afghanistan. Afghans cannot even receive a service from government officials without paying for it.

Pensioners must wait for weeks in order to get the money they are owed. A lot of them must pay bribes in order to get their money.

Afghans have paid out 2 and a half billion dollars in bribes last year, the same amount that is generated by the country's opium trade. Half of Afghans had to bribe an official at least once. Government corruption has forced Afghans to pay at least a third of their income in bribes each year.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction reported that 3/4 of all the corruption cases being investigated involved at least one Westerner.

"This problem of corruption exists in every government department and every industry," said Saed Ajmal, an anti-corruption official.

Because of all this, the majority of Afghans are very poor. Some of them must go as far as selling one of their kids in order to have money for the rest of the children.