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. 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 will pay three months’ salaries,” Ahmad Wali Haqmal, spokesman for the finance ministry said at a press conference. 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 United States provided more than 75 percent of the public expenditure under Afghanistan’s previous 20-year Washington-backed government.

Source: The Guardian November 20, 2021 15:29 UTC