Afghanistan is suffering from chronic power shortage because of lack of good governance, a graft watchdog said on Saturday.
Integrity Watch Afghanistan (IWA), a non-government organization that aims to spotlight corruption, said that the government in 2015 had pledged to get the population’s connection to the grid to 56 percent, but only 35 percent are connected.
“The Afghan government doesn’t have a clear and evidence-based prospect for governance in energy sector and this had led to slow growth in the sector and has created ground for corruption,” the group’s Executive Director SayedIkram Afzali said.
The watchdog said that the Finance Ministry decides which power project should be funded, despite lacking expert knowledge.
The Power Services Regulation Act was established in 2015, but the authority in this regard has not been established yet.
Despite that the National Procurement Authority doesn’t have necessary expert knowledge for the assessment of energy projects, the president assigns it to assess them, IWA said.
“Low human and institutional capacity, interference, contradictions in polices and missions, ambiguity in role of ministries and international development partners, discrepancy in development partners’ plans and government’s needs are among challenges that exist in the energy sector,” Afzali said.