Four months after the return of the Taliban, Afghanistan in economic crisis

In Afghanistan, no more loans are granted by the banks to pay the rents, to buy basic goods.

Consequently, consumption is collapsing, in a dizzying way in the country.

(Illustrative image) © AP / Felipe Dana

Text by: RFI Follow

2 min

In Afghanistan, the emergency is the economic and food crisis that is hitting the country.

In the various provinces, the question is no longer whether or not it is acceptable to live under a Taliban government.

The absolute priority is to feed oneself and to find the least resource to survive.

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With our special envoys

,

Afghanistan was supported at arm's length by the international community, and currently has nothing: there is no

and the administrations are closed.

Apart from the sovereign ministries (Interior, Defense and Foreign Affairs), almost all Afghan civil servants were dismissed overnight or continue to work out of duty, but no longer receive a salary.

There are no longer any loans granted by the banks to pay the rents or to buy basic

.

Consequently, consumption collapses in a dizzying manner: the fall in turnover among small traders, on the markets for example, is -70%, sometimes -90% of their income.

And all this while prices are rising every day, including those of basic products like oil, flour or wheat.

Funds for Afghanistan frozen

The

rhetoric

for several months now is that they have nothing to do with it and that the international community has only to release the funds blocked outside Afghanistan.

Because there is nearly 10 billion dollars frozen in the United States and this 10 billion, it is the assets of the Afghan Central Bank that Washington refuses to release in order, as the Americans say, not to support terrorism.

There is real unease among Western diplomats on this subject.

What some of them are saying is that yes, the Taliban are in power, but it is the Afghans that are being abandoned.

Mistrust on the part of Westerners

On the other hand, there is no reason to trust the new regime, the Taliban present themselves as moderates, but they had promised not to attack the former soldiers of the Afghan army and they have lied.

The Taliban claim that young girls will be able to enter school when security returns, and they are, although ISIS is still active in some parts of the country, but it is possible to move around freely.

So the security argument is a bogus argument.

In reality, the new regime dodges or procrastinates on all the issues pushed by the West.

In Europe and the United States, we are therefore extremely cautious, suspicious, and this is understandable given the liabilities of the Taliban between 1996 and 2001. So, the impasse persists, and in the middle, there are the Afghans who did not still not regained control of their life.

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