The Taliban has dismissed UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ recent statements regarding Afghanistan’s economy as “unfair and far from reality”.
In a statement in Persian on Thursday, the Taliban’s Ministry of Finance rejected Guterres’ claims that 90% of Afghan citizens live in poverty, six million people are facing famine, and 28 million people are in need of assistance.
The Taliban’s finance ministry has claimed that since their takeover of Afghanistan, there have been significant improvements in the country’s economic situation. The ministry cited the preparation of the national budget from internal revenues and the timely payment of salaries as examples.
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The group claims that despite the freezing of assets and the resulting issues in the banking sector, its government has maintained Afghani stable against other currencies, including the US dollar.
The Taliban’s Ministry of Finance has emphasized that it is the responsibility of international organizations to take impartial and practical measures to release the frozen assets of Afghanistan and remove banking sanctions.
Afghanistan, according to the UN, remains the largest humanitarian crisis in the world, which has been made worse by the Taliban’s severe restrictions on women’s rights to work as aider workers, including for the UN.
Since the group’s takeover of power in August 2021, the UN has injected around $2 billion cash into the country in order to deliver humanitarian assistance.
