EU to assist paying police wages

Guarding a government building in the Afghan capital Kabul, Zia-ul-haq, a 25-year-old Afghan police officer was worried about his 10-member family as he had been unable to send them money for months. “I have not been paid any salary for three months,” the commander of four policeman-posts told IRIN. While police wages have been one of the major challenges for security sector reform inside the beleagured nation, the European Commission (EC) announced on Thursday a 15.5 million euro contribution [almost US $18 million] to the Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan (LOTFA), primarily to address the issue of outstanding police wages. According to a report by Amnesty International, non-payment of wages is one of the main contributors to the corruption, lack of accountability, and even crime, being committed by the current 50,000 Afghan police force. The European Commission said it believed that without being able to provide regular payments, funds for training, and other essential needs of the police force, the efforts to reform the Afghan police would fail. “Most of the 15.5 million euro grant will go directly towards the payment of police wages,” Karl Harbo, the head of the EC Representation in Afghanistan, told IRIN in Kabul. The EC said three million euros of the grant would be allocated to provide security for the registration of voters for the country's next general elections set to be held in June. The EC has described police reform as a key element to the stability of Afghanistan, “and the only way to achieve it is to ensure that policemen are adequately trained, equipped and paid,” Harbo underlined, adding that the Afghan people deserved an accountable police force that respected and defended their rights. “This will not happen in one day, but the process must go as fast as possible," he explained. The Commission declared that another 50 million euros would be added to this grant by the end of the year. “Benchmarks will be the establishment of a reliable nationwide payroll system for the police, the expansion of the reform process to southern and eastern provinces, as well as consideration given to gender issues." Meanwhile, the Afghan Interior Minister, Ali Ahmad Jalali said that there remained a number of challenges which had caused delays in the payment of police salaries throughout the country. “The banking system is a major problem and to send cash from Kabul takes time,” Jalali told a press briefing on Thursday. He emphasised that they were being very careful in the disbursement of cash to certain areas to ensure monies were distributed properly. “Unfortunately we have witnessed cases in Afghanistan where a commander has received the money but has not given it to his men,” he claimed, noting that the ministry was working on a system to make sure every individual police officer received his/her wage. LOTFA, a United Nations managed trust, was established in mid 2002 to cover salaries and other essential needs of the Afghan police. “LOTFA has a requiring budget of US $114 million, out of which only $27.5 million was given by donors,” Gul Mohammad Fazli, a programme officer of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) told IRIN. According to the UN agency, the EC contribution would enable LOTFA to meet most of the challenges, however, $16 million would still be needed to cover the whole programme until March 2004, Fazli maintained.