After Taliban takes control, Afghanistan's ex-finance minister drives Uber cab in US
Six months after Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, which led to massive exodus of Afghan nationals, The Post reports that the country's ex-finance minister is now driving an Uber in Washington. Khalid Payenda, aged 40, abdicated his role as finance minister a week before the Taliban seized Kabul after his links with former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.
Talking about his everyday incomes, Khalid Payenda told the Washington Post that one night earlier this week, he made “a little more than $150 for six hours’ work, not counting his commute a mediocre night”. In Afghanistan, he once oversaw a US-supported $6bn budget.
Following his arrival to the US, Payenda was reunited with his family. The Washington Post quoted Payenda telling one passenger his move from Kabul to Washington had been “quite an adjustment”.
The former Afghan finance minister said he was grateful for the opportunity to be able to support his family but, “right now, I don’t have any place. I do not belong here and I don’t belong there. It’s a very empty feeling.”
Khalid Payenda is also working as an adjunct professor at the Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University.
The War-torn Afghanistan currently experiences a humanitarian and economic setback. Its assets were frozen and cut off from international aid that would be in need of recognition of the Taliban government which tookover from the US-supported administration.
Payenda’s said, “I saw a lot of ugliness, and we failed,” he said. “I was part of the failure. It’s difficult when you look at the misery of the people and you feel responsible.”
Furthermore, the former Afghan finance minister said, “I saw a lot of ugliness, and we failed,” he said. “I was part of the failure. It’s difficult when you look at the misery of the people and you feel responsible.”
Khalib Payenda said the United States were disloyal to its commitment to democracy and human rights after making Afghanistan a centrepiece of post-9/11 policy. “Maybe there were good intentions initially but the United States probably didn’t mean this,” Payenda said.
In a message to an official of World Bank in Kabul on the day the capital fell, Khalid Payenda said, “We had 20 years and the whole world’s support to build a system that would work for the people.”
“All we built was a house of cards that came down crashing this fast. A house of cards built on the foundation of corruption.”
