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President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani has said he does not want an apology from the British Prime Minister David Cameron for describing Afghanistan as ‘fantastically corrupt’.
In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today program, Ghanis said Afghanistan was “one of the most corrupt countries on earth”.
“He was describing the legacy of the past, a legacy in which many actors, many factors combined to produce one of the most corrupt countries on earth,” Ghani said.
President Ghani further added “The first part of addressing the problem begins with acknowledgement and we are partners in an effort to overcome this cancer. What distinguishes my government is our clarity about what we’ve inherited, our determination to address it, our willingness to form the right partnerships.”
He also added that the west had a duty to help as “the most significant driver of corruption is the narcotic cartel”, driving both terrorism, extremism and corruption.
Cameron risked derailing the gathering earlier this week when he was filmed boasting to the Queen and the Archbishop of Canterbury that he had some ‘fantastically corrupt’ countries attending.
He singled out Nigeria and Afghanistan during the unguarded conversation at Buckingham Palace, according to the local newspaper, MailOnline.
Meanwhile, the Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, in his turn said Wednesday that instead of an apology he would be demanding Britain return billions of pounds stolen by crooked officials and laundered in this country.
President Ghani said last week that corruption is a national stigma admitting that the government has not been able to uproot it from the governmental institutions.
In his remarks during at the European Conference ‘the way ahead for anti-corruption in Afghanistan’ President Ghani said corruption a legacy of the past and hundreds of cases are lying intact in the Attorney General office.
“We have re-organized the Council on Governance & Justice to become a High Council for Governance, Law, and Anti-corruption,” Ghani said, adding that “Our excellent Chief Justice and newly confirmed Attorney General are already breathing new life into justice sector reform.”
Source: Khaama Press
