The Taliban has appointed Hedayatullah Badri, the group’s former Minister of Finance, as acting governor of the Afghanistan central bank.
“Former acting minister of finance, Hedayatullah Badri, has been appointed as acting governor of Da Afghanistan Ban,” Zabihullah Mujahid, Taliban’s senior spokesman, said in a tweet in Pashto on Tuesday.
The change in Badri’s position comes after reports emerged that the group’s supreme leader, Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, had withdrawn about 60 billion Afghani, equivalent to 689,746,200.00 US dollars, from the Taliban’s Ministry of Finance over the past year.
According to Rahmatullah Nabil, the former Afghan spy chief, he had been opposed to Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada’s withdrawals and was forced out of his position.
Moreover, Nabil stated that Hibatullah had appointed his own tribesmen and trustees as customs officials and ordered them to transfer Kandahar’s quota of these customs revenues directly to his office in the future.
