KABUL — Afghanistan's Taliban authorities said Saturday they had begun
paying government employees who had not received a paycheck since the Islamists
seized power and triggered a major financial crisis.
اضافة اعلان
Most government employees have yet to return to work and many had not been
paid for months even before the Taliban captured power, especially rural
workers.
"We are going to start paying salaries from today. We will pay three
months' salaries," Ahmad Wali Haqmal, spokesman for the finance ministry
said at a press conference.
Haqmal said salaries will be paid for the period starting August 23, adding
that some government employees will be paid even for the month before the
Taliban took power.
The payment will be made through the country's banking system which Haqmal
said had not been "paralyzed" since the fall of the previous
government.
"It just needs time to operate normally," he said.
The government employees will still be unable to access their full salaries.
Since August, Afghanistan's banking sector has collapsed, and those with
money in the bank have struggled to access their funds as branches curtailed
withdrawals to $200 to $400 a week.
The financial crunch was aggravated after Washington froze about $10 billion
of assets held in its reserve for Kabul and deteriorated further after the
World Bank and International Monetary Fund halted Afghanistan's access to
funding.
Foreign donors led by the US provided more than 75 percent of the public
expenditure under Afghanistan's previous 20-year Washington-backed government.
The rapidly worsening situation has forced Afghans to sell their household
goods to raise money for food and other essentials with the local currency
crashing and prices skyrocketing.
Meraj Mohammad Meraj, the spokesman for the government's revenue department,
said the authorities were in a position to pay salaries after earning revenues
of around $277 million in the past two and half months.
"Only 20 to 25 percent of the economy was operational... Not all
sectors are currently operational," Meraj said at the press conference.
He added that the authorities will introduce a new Islamic tax to fund aid
projects for poor people and orphans.
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