Top Ghani aide questioned on corruption, govt's collapse

US authorities strive to find ‘missing links’ in former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani fleeing with 'sacks of dollars'

A former senior Afghan government official has said that he had answered questions during a US inquiry into allegations that former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani took away $150 million in cash while making an abrupt exit from Kabul last year following the Taliban takeover.

Hamdullah Mohib, who was Ghani’s national security adviser, said that he had voluntarily met Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko in December in Virginia to respond to questions about corruption in the US-backed former Afghan regime, Voice of America reported.

“I also gave [SIGAR] my bank accounts and details of all my assets,” said Mohib, who had left the war-stricken country in the same plane with Ghani and accompanied him in Abu Dhabi for a while.

Until its collapse, the US was the largest donor to the Afghan government, with SIGAR now tasked by the Congress to probe allegations of Ghani taking away millions in cash while fleeing Afghanistan last August.

Also read: Afghan central bank chief flees Kabul, blaming Ghani for chaos

“The fact that we're looking at those allegations doesn't mean that they're true or not,” Sopko was quoted as saying last week.

He went on to add that the probe included aspects such as, “Why did the government of Afghanistan fall so quickly? Why did the military collapse so quickly? What happened to all the weapons? What happened to all the money that we were sending right up to the end?”

SIGAR would find the answers and present a report to the Congress in March or April this year, with a public report to be released later.

While admitting that there was corruption within the former regime, Ghani's aides say 'allegations' that Ghani had fled with dollars were aimed at maligning him as a corrupt US ally.

They also talk of being unaware about the existence of sacks of cash in the presidential palace.

Also read: Ex-Afghan president says decision to flee Kabul made in 'minutes'

However, according to director of a local corruption watchdog Integrity Watch Afghanistan, Sayed Ikram Afzali, “Moving cash from the central bank to the palace was not a hard thing to do, especially when the governor of the bank was a Ghani henchman.”

It is interesting to note that SIGAR’s probes in the past have led to criminal charges and trials of US and Afghan individuals and companies in US federal courts.

It’s, however, unclear if SIGAR would press criminal charges against those commended as US partners, if the allegations prove to be true.

“We're looking at more people than President Ghani about taking money out of the country at the end,” Sopko concluded.