Afghanistan’s previous finance minister is now Uber driver in Washington DC

6 months just after Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, ensuing in mass exodus of Afghans, The Submit experiences that the country’s previous finance minister is driving an Uber in Washington DC. Khalid Payenda (forty) resigned as finance minister a 7 days prior to the Taliban seized Kabul just after his romantic relationship with Ashraf Ghani, previous Afghan President, deteriorated.

Talking about his day-to-day earnings, Payenda advised the Washington Submit that a person night time previously this 7 days, he designed “a small in excess of $one hundred fifty for 6 hours’ perform, not counting his commute a mediocre night”. In Afghanistan, he when oversaw a US-supported $6bn spending budget.

Immediately after coming to the US, Payenda was reunited with his loved ones. The Washington Submit quoted Payenda telling a person passenger his transfer from Kabul to Washington experienced been “quite an adjustment”.

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He claimed he was grateful for the prospect to be capable to help his loved ones but, “right now, I really do not have any location. I really do not belong below and I really do not belong there. It is a really vacant sensation.”

Payenda is also operating as an adjunct professor at the Walsh Faculty of International Assistance, Georgetown College.

Afghanistan at the moment faces a humanitarian and financial disaster. Its property were being frozen and lower off from worldwide help that would have to have recognition of the Taliban federal government which changed the US-supported routine.

Payenda’s claimed, “I noticed a ton of ugliness, and we unsuccessful,” he claimed. “I was section of the failure. It is challenging when you search at the distress of the individuals and you sense accountable.”

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Payenda claimed the US betrayed its determination to democracy and human legal rights just after creating Afghanistan a centrepiece of publish-nine/eleven coverage. “Maybe there were being great intentions to begin with but the United States most likely did not necessarily mean this,” Payenda claimed.

In a textual content concept to a Earth Financial institution formal in Kabul on the working day the money fell, Payenda claimed, “We experienced twenty several years and the total world’s help to establish a procedure that would perform for the individuals.”

“All we designed was a residence of playing cards that arrived down crashing this speedy. A residence of playing cards designed on the basis of corruption.”