Town Hall Meeting on Anti- Corruption Strategy

The town hall meeting started at 10:00 A.M with the recitation of a few verses of the Holy Quran. Next Mohammad Khalid on behalf of ANCB presented a comprehensive speech about the project, corruption elimination importance and youth role in corruption eradication. After the speech Mr. Maroof Shah Shinwar (Dean of Languages and Literature Faculty) presented a comprehensive speech and talked about the importance to root out corruption. He also thanked USAID and ANCB for their joint struggle to eradicate this destructive element. More than that, Mr. Turyalai Mankhel (head of English literature department) and Ziaur Rahman Zia (one of the professors) also talked about youth role in corruption eradication. It is also worth mentioning that the medium language in the town hall meeting was English. All the speeches, presentations, questions and answers except Maroof shah shinwari’s speech, were done in English.

The following are the ideas presented in the town hall meeting by various speakers:

“Youth is considered the back bone of society. A country cannot develop until the youth do not contribute their share; therefore, we are stimulating youngsters to fight against corruption. The anti-Corruption government strategy cannot succeed unless the program is supported by the nation’s youth and general public. Civil society organizations, government agencies, and institutions should be involved in the fight against corruption. The general public, and in particular youths, should understand the seriousness of the corruption problem in Afghanistan.”

“Currently, corruption is a serious problem and challenge for Afghan society. War lords, their associates, and their cohorts have imposed themselves on innocent civilians throughout Afghanistan for the last three decades. Therefore, corruption, impunity, and inaccessibility to accountability have become a dilemma in Afghanistan. Corruption constitutes a serious threat to Afghanistan’s nation-building and development agenda. Over the years, it has increased dramatically and has emerged as one of the biggest challenges facing the country’s reconstruction efforts and strengthening national and sub-national governance. It is a fact that corruption hurts the poor disproportionately by diverting funds intended for development thereby undermining the Government’s ability to provide basic services, promotes inequality and injustice, and discourages foreign investment and aid. Lack of an efficient and transparent public service delivery mechanism at the grass-root level, where people experience their government, has alienated the poor in the villages and cities from the development process. The poor have started questioning the whole paradigm of development while the anti-government groups have started exploiting the disappointment among the common people.”

During the town hall meeting many students willingly presented their notions regarding corruption menace and the importance to eradicate this destructive element.

At the end of the meeting once again the dean of the faculty thanked ANCB for their struggles to curb corruption and stimulated students to promise to cooperate with the government in corruption elimination.

Participant List:

1.    More than 200 students, 20 of which were female students, participated in the town hall meeting

Professors:

1.    Maroof Shah Shinwari

2.    Turyalai Mankhel

3.    Ziaur Rahman Zia

4.    Shamsur Rahman Adil

5.    Hazrat Tassal Hazratti

6.    Khairullah

7.    Zahidullah Safi

8.    Mirwais Shinwari

9.    Ahmad Gul Momand

Students’ presenters:

10. Omaidullah

11. Ahmad Zahir

12. Abdul Khaliq

13. Safiullah Stanikzai

14. Zubairullah Hashmi

15. Farida Shinwari

Town Hall meeting

Time: 10:00 AM

Date: 08 May

Venue: Literature Faculty, English Department