If the Taliban win the war on the ground in Afghanistan, it will be more difficult on the economic front. It will be difficult for them to get hold of the billions of dollars in reserves in the country. These are largely kept abroad, with the great part unknown being in the United States.
“The Central Bank assets that the Afghan government has in the United States will not be available to the Taliban,” a Biden administration official said Monday. In total, the gross reserves of the Central Bank of Afghanistan amounted to 9.4 billion dollars at the end of April, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The flight of President Ashraf Ghani abroad leaves a bitter taste to the Governor of the Central Bank of Afghanistan, Ajmal Ahmady. “Once the president’s departure was announced, I knew there would be chaos in a matter of minutes. I can’t forgive him for creating this without a transition plan, ”he tweeted Monday. “It shouldn’t have ended this way. I am disgusted by the Afghan leaders’ lack of planning. I saw them at the airport leaving without notifying the others ”.
Ajmal Ahmady, who received threats, also fled the country on Sunday, explaining that his close colleagues “shoved” him into a military plane after trying to stabilize the currency amid the Taliban advance. The central bank was informed on Friday that “given the deteriorating environment, we would no longer have shipments in dollars,” and it met with bankers and brokers on Saturday to reassure them, it said.
The United States could also try to block aid planned by the IMF and World Bank. Reducing aid in an attempt to bring the regime to its knees by draining it financially will not be easy: “it will have consequences for the functioning of schools, hospitals, governments,” explains Vanda Felbab-Brown, an Afghanistan specialist at the Brookings Institution. . Another difficulty, countries will fall into two different camps according to their interests: “those who want to cut all money inflows, countries motivated by human rights”, versus “those who want money to keep flowing. -Terrorist reasons such as , for example, China ”.
The IMF approved on November 6, 2020 an aid program of 370 million dollars for Afghanistan to be distributed over 42 months, with an immediate disbursement of 115 million dollars. At the beginning of June a second installment was paid for 149.4 million. Therefore, some 105.6 million dollars remain to be paid. Meanwhile, the World Bank has several development projects underway in the country and has provided $ 5.3 billion to date, mostly in the form of grants.
