Loukas Christodoulou

The root of Afghanistan's poverty lies in years of being kicked around as a football in the Cold War, and now in being dominated by US-friendly warlords. This latest stage of its development is being overseen by corporations (see the recent report Afghanistan Inc on www.corpwatch.org ) including our old friend Capita.

Dubbed 'Crapita' by Private Eye in 1999, Capita are well known as the company that spectacularly messed up the housing benefits claims of so many thousands of residents of the London Borough of Lambeth in 2001. It has also run the UK teachers' pension scheme, making £60.5m in the process. This record of achievement has so impressed the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) that they've made Capita Resourcing the recruiter for several key counter-narcotics posts in Afghanistan. These posts, such as 'Counter-Narcotics Police Advisor' are part of the UK contribution to ending Afghanistan's role as a major opium exporter.

The posts, which will pull in the lucky applicants between 80-100k per year, involve not only advising the fledgling Afghan government on eradicating poppy farming but also developing a PR strategy to sell this to the locals. However, while the majority of Afghanistan's population exist in dire poverty, growing poppies will remain an attractive option. The jobs on offer do include an 'Alternative Livelihoods Advisor', who will apparently act as a glorified careers counsellor, setting peasants and warlords up with new socially acceptable jobs.

So if any top consultants or bureaucrats feel lucky, they should apply to Capita - however, be warned. The 'disparate stakeholders' that your boss will ask you to 'engage with' will not be impressed by even the glossiest of brochures for the latest consultation exercise.