Afghanistan’s central bank governor is trying to explain to the Taliban why the banking vault is not crammed with dollars.
Afghanistan’s central bank governor, Ajmal Ahmady, said on Wednesday that Taliban members were apparently looking for the physical location of the central bank’s international reserves.
There is only one problem. Most are tied up abroad.
“I am writing this because I have been told that the Taliban are asking employees of DAB (the Afghan central bank) about the location of the bank’s capital. If this is true, it is obvious that it is urgent to get an economist on the team, “Ahmady writes Twitter thread Wednesday morning.
Also read: History professor reaches out to Trump’s deal with the Taliban
The governor confirms that the Afghan central bank has $ 9 billion in international reserves.
“But that does not mean that DAB has $ 9 billion physically placed in our vault,” Ahmady writes.
Also read: Reactions to 14 Norwegians being evacuated by Danish plane – now the pilot tells why it was right
$ 9 billion abroad
Ahmady then explains the Central Bank’s various placements of the country’s international reserves, of which 3.1 billion are tied up in US bonds, 2.4 billion are tied up in the World Bank’s investment program RAMP, 1.2 billion are tied up in gold, 300 million in cash are placed in accounts, 1.3 billion is placed in various international accounts and 700 million is placed in the International Settlement Bank (BIS).
The Biden administration has now cut off all access to the Afghan international reserves placed in US financial institutions, writes The Washington Post.
Also read: Afghanistan’s central bank governor criticizes the president
Central Bank Governor Ahmady further wrote on Twitter that the Central Bank was dependent on physical deliveries of cash several times a month. The remaining amount is almost zero dollars as the Biden administration has in recent days stopped the dollar deliveries due to the deteriorating security situation.
“It seems that our partners had good intelligence according to what would happen,” writes Ahmady.
The Taliban has access to 0.2 percent of the funds
Ahmady thus concludes that the Taliban may have access to between 0.1 and 0.2 percent of the country’s international reserves.
“It’s not much,” he writes.
“An interesting remark is that the International Monetary Fund has recently approved an allocation of 650 billion SDR. DAB was scheduled to receive $ 340 million on August 23. I am unsure whether the allocation will take place as planned for the sake of Afghanistan, “Ahmady writes.
