KABUL — Afghanistan's currency hit 100 to the
US dollar Tuesday, losing 5 percent of its value in one day in a panic triggered
by fears that one of the country's biggest banks could collapse, traders said.
اضافة اعلان
Afghanistan has been hit by an enormous shortage of dollars
since the Taliban marched into
Kabul and seized power on August 15, as
international donors suspended billions in aid provided annually to the
previous regime.
Since the Taliban takeover, the US has frozen around 10
billion dollars in reserves that Afghanistan's central bank had parked in the
US Federal Reserve.
The crisis looked set to deepen overnight and this morning
when news circulated that Maiwand Bank — among the country's five biggest
lenders, according to traders — had collapsed.
"That was false," said Haji Sher Shah Ahmadzai,
who heads the dispute resolution committee at Kabul's Money Exchange
Commission.
But "trust has been eroded," he said, as Maiwand
has in recent weeks failed to return funds owed to the commission, which has
some eight million dollars deposited in the bank, Ahmadzai said.
A spokesman for Maiwand said that the bank remained
operational and was continuing to honor commitments to depositors in line with
central bank directives.
One financially insolvent trader among the hundreds at
Kabul's open air exchange held his head in his hands, repeatedly crying out:
"I have drowned!"
The Afghani stood at 104.5 to the greenback in late Tuesday
trade, compared to around 80 in early August.
One trader said that the market is being hit by fears of a
much wider collapse of the country's financial system.
"There are rumors about the collapse of all
Afghanistan's banks," said Bilal Khan as he counted batches of Afghanis.
"There is no money in the banks. The banks are refusing
to pay your own money to you."
Khan also cited a dawning realization in the market that the
Taliban will not be recognized by the international community any time soon.
Traders had initially expected that "the new government
would be recognized," he said.
But consequent disappointment "is causing heavy
devaluation of the Afghani against the dollar, Pakistani rupee and the
euro".
The Taliban last month announced a ban on using foreign
currencies in Afghanistan.
But the rules are not being enforced, according to traders.
The country's cash crunch has fed into an economic collapse
that has left it facing a deepening humanitarian crisis.
More than half of Afghanistan's 38 million people face
"acute" food shortages, according to the
UN, with the impending
winter forcing millions to choose between migration and starvation.
Many people in the capital have resorted to selling
household goods in order to feed themselves.
The new government is pressing for the US to release the
frozen central bank reserves.
Read more Business
.jpg)
.jpg)
