Limited powers

This article, in this morning's Financial Times, caught my eye. It details the efforts of the latest governor of Helmand province, Gulab Mangal, to root out endemic corruption. Mangal, reports the writer, dresses up in disguise and goes out on his weekends looking for policemen seeking bribes. "If they are junior, I sack them on the spot," he is quoted as saying, proudly. Which begs a question - what if they are senior?

To be fair to Mangal, however, the article goes on to suggest that he is trying to break up the local opium trade which, UN figures published earlier this week showed, grew to new record levels in this year's springtime harvest. The UN focused on the fact that overall production in Afghanistan was down, but a drought appears significantly responsible for the fall.