Not reforms

Ten governors have been removed or reassigned under presidential order. Was it to improve government efficiency or political expediency?

Ten governors have been removed or reassigned under presidential order. Was it to improve government efficiency or political expediency?
Mir Ahmad Sirat, a lecturer in Kabul University, believes that though the president had issued an ambitious 23-page list of reforms to address governance concerns among foreign donors on June 21, the political shakeup of 10 governors does not hold out hope for immediate change. “The new people will take time to deliver… The government will be able to use the excuse of waiting for non-performance.”
In the opinion of Mustafa Rasouli, a writer and journalist, the changes introduced by the government are cosmetic at best. “Unfortunately, the government does not have a programme for reforms. The government takes action only because it is under pressure from the international community and donors.”
Rasouli raises objections to Karzai’s decision to reassign governorships without reforming the administration. He calls it a “policy of expediency”. How come Abdul Jabar Taqwa, former governor of Takhar province, has been assigned the governorship of Kabul when he was not successful, he asks.
Nothing has changed since June when Karzai promised to tackle corruption, according to Rasouli. With barely two years left in office, Karzai may have squandered his chance to improve his so far dismal track record. “The implementation of reforms could have compensated for his many failures,” he observes.
Political expert Abdul Muqeem Maisam Ghaznawi thinks if the government had a planned schedule of reforms Afghanistan would see things changing for the better in all provincial offices. Khatera Yakta, a female student of political science in a private university, believes the government should try to appoint “a new person with new programmes” in government offices, who would transform the situation. Her argument is taken forward by Hafizullah Zaki, a journalist and political observer. “Our limited experience of the past shows that people alone cannot make for administrative efficiency. There have to be changes in policies and programmes,” he adds.
Zaki thinks the government’s policy of simply shuffling governors has not yielded results. “This cannot be counted as either wise or a solution to the problem of weak administrative order in Afghanistan.” Appealing for change, he adds: “Reforms require vast changes in the structure of a system.”