Smuggling between Afghanistan and Pakistan ... a "livelihood" for the residents of Nangarhar

Nasser Shadid-Jalalabad

Afghan economists have warned the government against slackening in not controlling the eastern borders with Pakistan, after increasing the operations of smuggling goods without paying customs taxes, despite the Pakistani government's decision to open its crossings completely in late July with Afghanistan.

Far from the eyes of the Afghan customs and close to the eyes of "Al-Jazeera", animals in all kinds of camels, horses and donkeys go by transporting various goods between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and vice versa. There are hundreds of trucks that come daily to unload their cargo in forty warehouses spread in the district of Durand in the border state of Nangarhar, where the smuggled goods gather from all humps And towards the preparation to be transferred from Afghanistan to Pakistan.

Mia Khan, a warehouse official working in the profession of smuggling goods for more than forty years, told the island: "Afghanistan has no sea port, so when the goods arrive from India, China or Korea, we transport them to Pakistan, without going through the official borders, because in short they will ask us for an additional tax ".

"We dump the one truck with six dollars, and then the goods are smuggled into Pakistan through horses and donkeys, and we really do not know what these animals are carrying from the Pakistani side when they return here," said Rahmatullah Shinwari, who has worked for 15 years in this profession.

Four thousand people
There are no accurate official figures on the extent of tax evasion in Afghanistan, but experts and economic analysts estimated the amount at about two billion dollars annually.

Workers in the profession estimate more than four thousand people along the border, between a merchant, smuggler and warehouse official, whose job is to transport goods from Nangarhar, one of the most important provinces of eastern Afghanistan to Pakistan, without going through the border tax.

In a strange view, animals are gathered together as a chain behind each other before making their way towards valleys, mountains and rugged roads, for a long distance that may take days, carrying everything that could be smuggled towards Pakistan. "I have been working here for 15 years, my job is to transport goods from Afghanistan to Pakistan, and for every move I get twenty dollars is my daily living," said the worker Hayat Wali, who was stopped by the island while driving a buggy.

In the Jalalabad border market, the goods, some of which are fleeing to Pakistan, are accumulated. The figures speak of a trade exchange volume of two and a half billion dollars annually between the two countries.

Although there are no accurate official figures on the losses of tax evasion in Afghanistan, it is unanimous by economists that government laxity greatly affects the state treasury. "The volume of smuggling between the two countries amounts to twice the trade with Pakistan," economic analyst Abdul-Wafi, the deputy of Zay, believes, due to "the presence of black markets within Pakistani territory that depend on goods arriving from Afghanistan," concluding that merchants do so in the hope of double profits.

Forbidden
Afghan observers believe that some of the goods smuggled from both countries are prohibited and illegal, such as drugs and weapons, as a result of the absence of government control, without anyone daring to disclose or obstruct this intra-tribal trade that is protected by the tribes between the two countries. Rather, the trade between them is an economy parallel to the state’s economy.

The merchant attends a prophet: Forty years ago we smuggled the goods from here, but we do not allow the transport or entry of illegal goods, and anyone who is caught in possession of prohibited goods is expelled from here immediately, so we agreed.

The Afghan authorities are seeking to stop the smuggling to Pakistan, but they are unable to do so, she said, because the common border between the two countries reaches a length of 2500 kilometers, with eight Afghan states on the borders of Pakistan.