Afghanistan: Danish Embassy Corruption

Nazar Mohammad Mutmaeen – (Afghan writer and Analyst based in Kabul)

In 2014, Denmark was at the top of corruption-free countries, the level of corruption was close to zero there; I became very happy when I heard that there is a country in the world that its people are not involved in corruption.

Therefore, I, in a small meeting of course, congratulated Secretary of the Denmark Embassy on that their country has become free of corruption; there were four persons at all, the Secretary and an Afghan employee from the Embassy, an Afghan employee from the Education Ministry and me. However, the Secretary did not became interested in my congratulations; but then, I learned that the Secretary and the Afghan employee would be involved in corruption in DAARTT Contract, that’s why he did not become happy.

In 2014, the budget of Denmark for the Ministry of Education was 27 Million Dollars that was going to be spent in different areas.

The one and only condition of the Denmark Embassy was that 2 Million Dollars of the budget should be given to the two international NGOs, DAARTT and Article 25, in order to increase the capacity of Afghan engineers.

When engineers were asked, they showed strong disagreement with the capacity-building program of DAARTT and Article 25; they claimed that DAARTT hire fresh-graduated engineers and Article 25 don’t has office in Afghanistan, in the case, we have more experience than them, and that this money goes useless. The opinion of engineers and experienced advisors and employees was that this 2 Million Dollars contract should not take place, instead of that, this money should be given to school-building program in order for Afghan students to shift from sunlight to shadow and for school to be built in remote areas.

When the engineers did not agree to have this contract, eventually, the Minister of Education told the engineers that pretend they are providing us with only 25 Million Dollars, and do not give us the remaining 2 Million Dollars; if we do not accept this contract of 2 Million Dollars, they would hold the entire budget back with different excuses, then. It is good for us to accept this 2 Million Dollar contract with them and do work the way they like.

DAARTT and Article 25 were signed the 2 Million Dollar contract with as a Single Source (it is not allow the contract more than USD 100,000, as per the Afghanistan Procurement low) in order to build capacity of engineers, and it was look like that Education Ministry provided the Denmark Embassy with 2 Million Dollars as bribe. When the contract signed, the Denmark Embassy confirmed that the Education Ministry can get use of the entire 27 Million Dollars, then.

The 2 Million Dollars contract was being prepared by the Education Ministry the way mentioned NGOs liked, and, in this, a lot of role was being played by the head of Planning Department, Mr. Arian, who was trying to show himself close to foreigners, however, the contract was supposed to be ratified by the Procurement Department, it was not easy for DAARTT and Article 25 to receive such an expensive contract from the Procurement Department without providing it with money. The case of corruption with head of the Procurement Department was taking ahead by the Afghan employee of Denmark Embassy, and the director of procurement was put pressure on, the reason was the foreigners in Embassy could not deal with Afghans directly. Besides that, the director of both NGOs were taking ahead their case of corruption with Procurement Directorate, these contracts took place in the end of 2013 and beginning of 2014, bid document were given to DAARTT & Article 25 only.

While arriving journalists from Denmark to Kabul, the employees in the Embassy that work with the Education Ministry, became so frightened, they gather school lists and various information and try to make Danish journalists satisfied. They are so afraid, Danish journalists from School-Quality, DAARTT and Article 25 are never given chance to have meeting with Afghan engineers or asked them that how effective the 2 Million Dollars capacity-building project is.

In 2014, a high level Danish delegation attended Kabul, they had meeting with some engineers; the engineers, clearly, told them that corruption is being done in Denmark’s money, the projects that needed to be contracted in three months and were supposed to be started on time are being delayed in the Procurement Department (PD) of Education Ministry for 10 months just for that the employee of mentioned department want 10%-5% interest (as bribe) in these projects, and they never let the open bid; PD provides two or three of his favorite companies with the bid documents, and, when they do not provide him with bribes, they renounce the projects, then. A project is being announced for two or three times and is granted to no one, just because the requested bribe is not received by the head Procurements before the bid being started. Engineers told this to Danish delegation that they, for the several times, asked the Denmark Embassy to clear this matter with the Education Ministry and make it to provide the companies with the projects on time, however, the 2 projects are yet to be contracted.

When the Danish delegation asked about DAARTT and Article 25, the engineer said, we are told that this 2 Million Dollars project is a political projects and whenever you are asked, you should say that it is going well, and it is a good project; but, in reality, what DAARTT does, is not worth 100,000 Dollars and engineers are yet to be benefited from this project. If 100,000 Dollars were spent rightly, its profit would be more than now, and the Article 25 do not have employees in Afghanistan, and the staff has never come to the country, everything is done on the paper only; Article 25 had name but no body, one or two time the Directors of the company came to Kabul.

Need to mention that Afghan engineers made the Danish high-level delegation understand that corruption has taken place in DAARTT and Article 25’s 2 Million Dollars project.

Not only the Ministry of Education was involved in corruption while publishing books but some of the employees from Denmark Embassy were involved in corruption, also; that’s why they could not put pressure on Afghan employees, the intermediary of corruption in the Denmark Embassy was by Afghan staff.

The engineers introduced to the Denmark Embassy were not involved in corruption, one of them was an advisor, he, in his every report and even before the contract, has provided the Education Ministry with written reports that DAARTT and 25 should not be contracted, otherwise, this money would be spent with nothing.

Of course, DAARTT would have done other works with the Ministry of Education, also; it is why the engineers knew that DAARTT and Article 25 are came to Afghanistan and have recommendation of the Denmark Embassy just in order to steal.

DAARTT received and spent its entire 1 Million Dollars from the budget of year 2014, and as it had the support of Denmark Embassy, so no one could pursue their case; in 2015, they even took 40500 Dollars for that they did additional work, employees of the Education Ministry were involved in this corruption with them, the ground for this, to a large extent, was facilitated by the Afghan employee of Denmark Embassy> There are some unconfirmed reports that the embassy Afghan staff has taken share in other projects of the Education Ministry, also.

When the Denmark Embassy, DAARTT, Article 25 and the Education Ministry realized that the engineers do not get bribes and do not compromise with DAARTT and Article 25 when it comes to money, they put pressure on the engineers, and they take the engineer that was supposed to do this job out of they play, in order for the problem to be not made for DAARTT and Article 25.

If the Danish journalists review the documents of Article 25 (NGO) that how it received money, in the case, they have not trained the Afghan engineers even for one day; besides that, it received the first installment and stole some other money, also.

The money remained from Article 25 in 2014 were supposed to be taken by the employees of Denmark Embassy, they tried some employee of MoE to become involve in their corruption, and suggested that the money remained from capacity building and if needed, another amount should be added to it and then a contract should be signed with DAARTT. As they could not do any justification under the name of capacity-building, so they made another plan for theft as a result of advices they receive from Afghan employees, the head of Procurements and Parwiz Yusufzai, in the time of contracting with DAARTT, the government became renewed, President Ghani delayed the entire huge contracts of the Education Ministry, however, the Procurement Department of the Education Ministry became able to receive the Presidential Order for signing the contract with DAARTT and this contract done through single source, same like last year. Almost 20 school projects were going on at all, there were even 15 schools in a list, they made the list of these 15 schools, and when they were not enough, so they added some other school and increased this number to 20; when 20 projects were too inadequate, they added previously completed projects in it, but the list was still not satisfying; therefore, they, in some areas, divided a project into three, and, in some areas, registered a same project with two different names, eventually they prepared a list of 40 projects, then.

The entire thieves became agreed to have this contract that is at about 0.7 Million Dollars under the name of monitoring 40 schools by DAARTT (NGO), the head of DAARTT was insisting that there should be Article 25 joint venture with them, Afghan employees had accepted that, also; but, as they had left the previous contract uncompleted, so there were faced some problems related to law.

This time, the engineers that were against contracting with DAARTT became removed from the play before that contract was being signed, their working chamber became limited, and the one who was responsible to report to the Denmark Embassy was replaced with an engineer to DAARTT and the Embassy, that did know nothing about the DANIDA program. The former engineer was always telling the Afghan engineer and employees of the Denmark Embassy that contracting with DAARTT is a big treason.

Originally, DAARTT has monitored 12 projects; some of these projects were previously completed, some of them are stop projects that there reports are previously given to the Denmark Embassy, there are projects that located in secure areas, also; the projects that need to be monitored are yet to be observed, the report, to a large extent, is made upon the Audits’ report of 2014, which was previously handed to the Denmark Embassy construction department

Firstly, DAARTT had requested 20% of the payment (129,821 Dollars); however, it, one day after holding meeting with the Afghan engineers, requested 25% (162,276 Dollars), they added 32,455 Dollars in one day.

In 2009, the Denmark Embassy signed a contract of 10 school projects with DAARTT; the expenses estimated by DAARTT were very high 8.5 Million Dollars compared normal expenses estimated by the Education Ministry. USD 85000 per School was too high cost, Danish journalists are supposed to review the contract signed with DAARTT in order to learn that how Danish taxpayers money are spent.

Danish journalists need to review the following projects and documents including DAARTT and Article 25, it is said that the journalists from Denmark National TV were here in Kabul, recently.

Institutes provided by the Vocational and Technical Department of the Education Ministry and their expenses, the Gharghasht School project that is stopped since three years, 75% of its work is completed and the remaining 25% is yet to be completed in last three years, similarly, the school projects of Ashraf Yound in Takhar, Wahdat Girls school in Takhar, Bagrami girls School in Kabul, Imam Aazam Oqtash Schoo, Omar Farooq School in Maidan Wardak and Bakhtar School in Balkh.

Hassan Warqa School in Ghazni, Koh Aff in Badakhshan and Tonji School in Balkh ; important that to check the Qasamia Madrasa Madras bid documents, the Qasamia Madrasa documents pending in Procurement Department since 2 years.

When deal occurred in corruption process, some employee became hired without passing the legal process, the test and some of them were even not professional, some of them were not doing thier jobs; however, they were given salary from the Denmark budget, also. There were some directors that were receiving salary from Denmark and one another donor in the same time; however, these salaries are not given from late June.

There would be other corruption files, also; however, we do not mention it due to the length of the article.