N.Y times in an Article that was published on the 17th of June 2011 said that the World Bank is Withholding $70 million from the Government of Afghanistan because of the Kabul bank crises that lost around $300 million in august 2010, by January that number rose up to $900 million in losses.
Kabul Bank is the Largest bank in Afghanistan that was doing around 70% of the pay for Police and Afghan National Army before the crises. it's shareholders included Vise President Qasim Fahim and Brother of Hamid Karzai. these Shareholders did a major undocumented pullout from Kabul Bank to invest or party in other countries of the world "guess not even the Afghan Politicians in highest ranks of the Government think this country will survive." the President and VP of Kabul Bank were told to Resign after the incident and Karzai launched an Investigative Commission by demand of World Bank to find out what went wrong.
The Crises was the cause of bringing down Afghanis from 50 to 45 per dollar.
This Commission concluded that all 207 shareholders who were major politicians and power brokers in Afghanistan did nothing wrong and had no hand in the crises. the report was then presented to I.M.F (International Monetary Fund) by the commission in hopes that the frozen funds be released to Afghan Government but since I.M.F was not satisfied with the result of the findings which of course they weren't, Afghanistan might lose that $70 million forever and donor countries will need more transparency from the Afghan Government in order to release more funds. these donor countries have not put any funds for Afghanistan in the last 3 months. that money will dry up soon and may cause for Afghan Government not to be able to pay 250,000 civil servants that includes ANSF (Afghan National Security Forces).
So you see Karzai does care about his Brothers and the people around him but does not care about the real servants of Afghanistan that is shedding sweat and blood for this country everyday.
Since fall of the Taliban in 2001 the International Community have spent billions of dollars in AID money for Afghanistan, but none of this money was spent to stabilize Afghan Economy and Afghan lives. most of the money that was/is being spent in Afghanistan is for structures and goods that will vanish in the 2nd day. for example; giving $150 to every Afghan returnee will not solve his lifelong problem but giving him a job will. there are more than 3 million people that are jobless in Afghanistan. since 2001 there has not been much attention to creating factories that hire local afghans for work. Ministry of works says that we do not have expert workers in the field required but they could give him training to do the job properly, i mean how hard is it to drive a tractor on a farm land?
in order for this country to survive an economic crises, she needs sustainable economy; and for a sustainable economy you need an industry, Local production "Factories", standardized import and export which Afghanistan has little of. Money that comes easy goes easy and can not be accounted for in most cases and International AID money purring into Afghanistan is just like that.
Politicians like Karzai and his team only cares about their own pockets and what they can get out of this mess that will help them. they have never cared for Afghanistan and will never care for it. we the youth of Afghanistan need to think about it's future or this country is going to Dark ages one again!!!!
By: Mohammad Jawad (JD)
