Afghanistan was in the news again. But this time, it was different. This time I am not referring to any kind of a terror attack on anywhere but the root cause. The governor of the Central Bank of Afghanistan announced his resignation from his home in Washington's suburbs. That is what I got from the news reports. Mr. Abdulkadir Fıtrat first left Afghanistan for the United States and then made an announcement regarding his resignation somewhere in northern Virginia. The announcement is further proof that the Kabul Bank scandal of last year was not only a bank failure but a government failure. I saw the problem with Afghanistan one more time when I read the news story. Let me tell you about the problem I saw in Afghanistan.

The problem with Afghanistan is not about the failure of an Afghani bank which was owned by close relatives of Afghani political elites. That we can see in any normal country. It is also not about connected lending that brought about the demise of Kabul Bank last year. Excessive lending to the owners of a bank can occur in any country. That was one of the reasons for the Turkish banking crisis in 2001, for example. It is also not only about regulatory failure on the part of banking watchdogs. Look at the situation in the U.S. and European banking failures! What struck me again was the fact that the former governor made his announcement at "his home" somewhere in Virginia. His family has already been living there and not in Afghanistan. I think this is the reason for the failure of all the efforts at state building in Afghanistan so far.

You can outsource many governmental services, but you cannot outsource basic governmental skills on a temporary basis. Are you following the development debate nowadays? A country's performance is a function of its capabilities. The level of development of a country depends very much on the quality and variety of the capabilities it has managed to put together. The latter involves both the skill sets of the labor force and the quality of institutions together with situation of infrastructure in the country. Afghan reconstruction has failed at enlarging the Afghani capabilities set so far despite billions of dollars spent by foreign donors. You can build hospitals with cutting-edge technology, but you still need skilled labor to make them operational. The Afghan case has also taught us that you cannot provide these services properly with temporary workers who plan to leave the country for their "home" as early as possible.

This feature of Afghan reconstruction struck me a few years ago, when I first visited Kabul. In every ministry I visited, I saw two types of Afghanis: Plump guys in western business suits and slim ones in traditional Afghani attire. The former are in the decision-making posts while the latter are only walking around. Then I learned that the former have two different passports and dual citizenship, while the latter have only one; the families of the former live abroad, while that of the latter are residing in Kabul. I think that makes a difference, a significant one.

However, deficiency in basic administrative skills is a bigger issue. Solving the problem by increasing the number of bureaucrats with two different passports does not work. They should definitely see Afghanistan as their home, not their temporary office. If you ask me, that is why Afghanistan's reconstruction is not working.

This commentary was published in Radikal daily on 02.07.2011