A Kabul-based monitoring organization which has assessed the appointments in Afghanistan’s diplomatic offices and in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs finds that at least 200 Afghan diplomats are missing who have been assigned in different abroad missions over the past decade.

The report by Independent Joint Anti-Corruption Monitoring and Evaluation Committee (MEC) shows that the process for the appointment of employees for the consulates and Afghanistan’s embassies abroad have changed into a source of “political pressure, extortion and rewards”.

The report says that from 1,060 employees of Foreign Affairs Ministry, 164 have undergraduate certificates which are unrelated to the jobs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The report shows that the Ministry of Higher Education has issued temporary certificates to a number of employees.

“There is evidence that we got from the ministry, either they are very initial information or secondhand,” said Mujib Payab, MEC researcher.

Based on the report, from the figure, 400 of them were hired illegally with eight percent of them lacked legal employment criteria and were unfamiliar with the diplomacy and unable to speak a foreign language.

“A large number of people who we talked with, our findings indicate that they have not completed diplomatic training period and were appointed to the jobs,” said Bari Salam, MEC member.

But the Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected the report as biased and one-sided.

“Those who have written this report were seeking jobs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs but they were not hired whatever the reasons were. Their report is biased and against the academic principles,” the Foreign Ministry’s spokesman Sibghatullah Ahmadi said.