KABUL: Afghan Manufacturers and factory owners in Kabul claimed that the Afghan National Police (ANP) paid bribes without this their trucks would not be allowed to enter the city.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Interior (MoI) has rebuffed the accusations and asserted that heavy load trucks have been barred from the city by the National Security Council in light of their common use by militant and terrorist groups.
However, truck drivers and business owners have maintained the new regulation on load size and entry into the capital has simply opened up opportunities for corruption. According to a number of drivers, if one pays a 20,000 AFN bribe, then police will allow their truck to enter the city, regardless of its load.
“If the vehicle owner gives them money they are allowed to enter the city, otherwise, trucks are stopped here for days,” one truck driver named Abdul Majid said.
The decline in commercial traffic into the city has hurt the capital’s industrial sector, the Afghan Industrial Union has said. “The stopping of trucks carrying raw materials and machines has pushed the factories to verge of collapse, because raw materials aren’t available and the machines are stopped at Kabul’s doors,” Afghan Industrial Union deputy head Abdul Rahim Faizan said.
According to manufacturers, the lack of standardized resources and facilities for the storing of products, and unloading of goods and machinery has also contributed to the problems faced in commercial transport into the capital. “We are facing a lot of problems, there are no cranes and other necessary equipments here so that we can relocate the machines,” a factory owner named Ahmad Nawid said. “Also there are no ports in Kabul to relocate the machines.”
In addition, non-commercial drivers, often carrying tag-along passengers into the city, report that they often have to pay bribes to enter the capital as well. “We are stopped in squares and police ask for money, if we refuse money, they stop us,” a driver named Mohammad Amin said.
The National Security Council decided last month to prevent heavy loaded trucks from entering the city, asking drivers to empty their trucks before entering. “As per the decision of the National Security Council, no heavy loaded truck is allowed to enter the city, however, there are some exceptions,” MoI deputy spokesman Najib Danish said.
