People grumble about it, but they rarely feel they can question it publicly because hiring a family member is a form of loyalty, which is respected, and no one would want to be shunned by their own family because they were not up to the mark. And yet as the country modernizes, it is becoming increasingly clear that it can no longer afford such inefficiencies.

Corruption and scams are also regular topics in the show, which tries to make its episodes topical. Raising them with humor is part of the show’s not-so-covert political agenda, which is to encourage Afghans to question the way their government works and to point out the Alice-in-Wonderland rationales that drive Afghan officialdom.

“The actor is the camera of society, watching the society with a different lens,” said Abdul Qadir Farouk, 65, a longtime actor who plays the minister. “It is to make people smile, but also to give people political knowledge.”

Television has an especially important role to play in Afghanistan because so few people read, Mr. Farouk said. “We need cinema and theater to teach them,” he said.

One of the scams deals with the minister cooking up a scheme to ensure that his ministry has plenty of jobs to give out. When the ministry becomes so good at garbage collection that there is no more garbage, he orders the garbage trucks to haul in refuse from other provinces to clog the streets.

The idea for the show originated with Saad Mohseni, the chairman of Moby Group, which owns Tolo, who worked briefly for a ministry before his television conglomerate got off the ground in the early days after the Taliban were driven from power. The young Afghan writers have all wrestled with ministries at one time or another, and several of the actors work in ministries or in government-owned industries, since acting here is a part-time profession.

Although they may have other jobs, it seems the actors have thrown themselves into the show, intent on illuminating for viewers the absurdity of the Afghan government. Mr. Monis, who plays the administrator, is so comfortable in his role that when he talks about his character it is hard to tell if he is acting or just talking about his life.